Pillsbury Trial Team Wins $54 Million Jury Verdict in Oil Cargo Case for CITGO

The verdict was handed down on December 18 after a week-long trial in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York against certain Lloyd’s underwriters and other insurers of the cargo, which included approximately one million barrels of crude oil aboard a ship chartered by CITGO. According to an article in Law360, the jury found after deliberating for less than one day that the insurers violated the terms of the Houston-based refiner’s policy.

In the trial, CITGO sought coverage for the lost oil under its policy's "Institute War Clauses," which extends coverage to losses caused by a seizure arising from an insurrection. Law360 reported that the underwriters denied coverage on the grounds that the unrest in Venezuela did not constitute an "insurrection" within the meaning of the policy.

According to coverage in Bloomberg, the court already had ruled that the upheaval surrounding the Venezuelan election constituted an insurrection but told the jury to determine whether that caused the seizure of the CITGO cargo. Jurors decided that it did.

Insurance Recovery and Advisory partners Mark Plumer and David Klein, Corporate Investigations & White Collar Defense partner Richard Donoghue, Special Counsel Jeffrey W. Mikoni, Counsel John Chamberlain, and Associate Georgia Bender composed the trial team.

The jury awarded CITGO more than $48.8 million in damages for the value of the oil plus other charges for a total exceeding $54 million. The case is CITGO Petroleum Corp. v. Ascot Underwriting Limited, 1:21-cv-00389.

The Pillsbury team was also recognized in Law.com's Litigator of the Week column. To read more, please click here.