CP Holdings Limited & Ors v Assicurazioni Generali SpA & Ors
Decision date: 8 July 2026
Neutral citation: [2026] EWHC 1717 (Comm)
Court: High Court (Commercial Court)
Insurance classification confidence: high
Overall AI summary confidence: medium
Short overview
A short description of the case, material issue, and outcome where supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this overview: medium
This case concerned construction of the 2018 Global Policy, specifically whether the Policy Loss Limit (€150m) and the Disease Clause sub-limit (€10m) operate per loss or as annual aggregates, how the indemnity period applies to Disease Clause business interruption (BI) losses, and the effect of General Clause 5 and the annual declaration spreadsheet on aggregation. The court held the Policy Loss Limit and the Disease sub‑limit are limits "each and every loss" (per loss), the indemnity period for Disease Clause BI runs from commencement of the interruption/interference up to a maximum of 36 months, and General Clause 5 prevents multiplication of the Disease sub‑limit only where the spreadsheet properly declares multiple operations as a single business. Declarations were granted on those preliminary questions; detailed application to the 141-row spreadsheet was left undecided.
Ratio decidendi
The legal reasoning necessary to the outcome, where it can safely be identified from the judgment.
AI confidence in this ratio summary: high
The binding ratio identifiable from the judgment is that where the Policy Schedule specifies limits as "each and every loss" those limits are to be read as per‑loss limits rather than annual aggregates; and, for the Disease Clause (which provides "pure" BI cover), references to the occurrence or commencement of "damage" for the purpose of measuring the indemnity period are to be read as referring to the commencement of the business interruption/interference, with a maximum indemnity period of 36 months. Additionally, General Clause 5 operates to prevent multiplicative application of the Disease sub‑limit only if, on proper construction of the declarations, multiple insured operations/premises are declared as a single business.
Obiter dicta
Judicial observations that were not necessary to the outcome, where they can safely be identified.
AI confidence in this obiter summary: high
The court observed (obiter) that the presumption against surplusage is of limited weight in deciding whether General Clause 5 is surplus to the Schedule, and that whether particular rows of the annual spreadsheet constitute a single declared business is a fact‑sensitive question requiring detailed analysis which was not appropriate at the preliminary trial.
Warning
- The chunk addresses preliminary construction questions and does not decide factual application to the individual declared rows; detailed spreadsheet analysis was not performed. The notes reflect rulings on preliminary construction only and the court did not apply those declarations to the individual 141 spreadsheet rows; factual application remains undecided.