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2021 US Insurance Awards: Anderson Kill, Legal Team of the Year

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Robert M. Horkovich

Robert M. Horkovich, managing partner in Anderson Kill P.C.’s New York office and chair of the firm’s insurance recovery group, says he is excited about the team’s work.

“We go in every day and get money for environmental cleanups; money which goes into trust to pay people injured by asbestos; money for companies closed down by COVID, so they can reopen and hire people,” said Mr. Horkovich, who is now in his 32nd year with the firm.

He gets excited “not because insurance itself is a riveting topic but because what the team does is help individual policyholders, and by doing that you can see in the aggregate it creates social change,” he said.

The firm’s work in representing corporate policyholders earned it the Business Insurance 2021 U.S. Insurance Award for Legal Team of the Year. 

Team members Marshall Gilinsky, Rhonda D. Orin, Dennis J. Artese, Mark Garbowski, Joshua Gold, Pamela D. Hans, Bill Passannante, Finley Harckham, Bob Chesler, Steve Pudell and Diana Gliedman all contribute to Anderson Kill’s work, which ranges from COVID-19-related cases, power plants and energy, and asbestos trusts to cyber liability and ransomware cases, Mr. Horkovich said.

Among its notable wins, as lead trial counsel for Bioenergy Development Group LLC, a biodiesel company seeking recovery of property damage and business interruption losses resulting from a fire at its Memphis, Tennessee, plant, Anderson Kill netted the policyholder a March 2019 appraisal award exceeding $24 million. 

Later, Bioenergy secured a summary judgment for all unpaid amounts awarded in appraisal and additional business interruption amounts pursuant to the policies’ escalation clause. 

In December 2019, the New York Appellate Division revived Bioenergy’s bad faith and consequential damages claims, worth over $35 million. In December 2020, the court unanimously affirmed the trial court’s summary judgment, dismissing three appeals challenging the judgment. 

Mr. Horkovich says the team is zealous about supporting policyholders’ COVID-19-related business interruption claims. “Our policyholders are people, and they employ people and they want to keep their businesses running and keep people employed and keep making payroll,” he said.

While insurers have won a majority of initial COVID-19-related business interruption cases, the issue will ultimately be decided on appeal in federal and state courts, where policyholders may find more success than in federal court, which relies more heavily on precedent, Mr. Horkovich said.

Anderson Kill has been retained by more than 170 businesses seeking coverage for income losses triggered by potential coronavirus contamination.

FINALISTS

• Blank Rome LLP — The firm’s national policyholder insurance recovery practice has recovered billions in the past decade. The unit employs 35 policyholder lawyers and has more than doubled since 2016, adding eight partners.

• Jones Day — The firm’s insurance recovery practice pursues insurance recovery for COVID-19, opioid litigation, data breaches, #MeToo and other sexual misconduct claims, and natural disasters in the U.S and globally.

• Pasich LLP — The firm recovered tens of millions in business interruption coverage on behalf of an entertainment company that was forced to close hundreds of facilities nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP — The firm’s transportation crisis management and emergency response team has 70 attorneys working on incident scene management, government investigations, aviation and aerospace, litigation and risk mitigation, and training.

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