Andrew Cheetham
Andrew is the national head of general insurance at HWL Ebsworth. He has over two decades of experience assisting statutory bodies, insurers, captives, corporates, directors, and brokers with the defence of claims and regulatory investigations. He also provides both contentious and non-contentious policy advice to those clients. The work Andrew’s team does spans all major insurance lines (liability, environmental, D&O, professional indemnity, construction and engineering, BIR, regulatory and property) and consists of 15 specialist corporate insurance lawyers.
Experience
Andrew’s experience includes:
- Advising a Queensland statutory authority in the defence of a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation;
- Advising a Queensland government department about insurable risks in connection with negotiating a multimillion-dollar arrangement with its IT provider;
- Advising the Northern Territory government about appropriate insurance products and arrangements that form part of the financial assurance framework established in the Petroleum Legislation Amendment Act 2022;
- Providing an ASX listed bank and insurer D&O and BCCPI coverage analysis if there were a breach, investigation or regulatory action initiated under the Financial Accountability Regime;
- Defending the ex-CIO and director of an ASX listed funds management company (in liquid) in defence of a class action for breaches of directors’ duties in Federal Court;
- Defending insurer in an environmental insurance dispute in respect of PFOS contamination issues at a major international airport;
- Acting for the captive insurer of an ASX listed national rail operator in respect of major derailments and recovery of loss against third parties;
- Providing regulatory advice to national transport insurer for relief from DSM provisions stemming from Hayne royal commission;
- Defending major banks and financial institutions in multimillion dollar claims for negligence and misleading and deceptive advice/conduct;
- Acting for domestic and international insurers across major banks and financial institutions and other ASX listed companies, as coverage counsel on class actions, remediation programs, regulatory investigations, and prosecutions;
- Acting for international D&O insurers, as coverage and monitoring counsel, in respect of numerous class actions initiated against banks and other financial institutions;
- Acting for the D&O insurers of ASX listed leisure management company, as coverage counsel for the WHS investigation and coronial inquest following the death of four patrons at Dreamworld;
- Acting for excess insurers, as coverage counsel on a banking and professional liability policy for claims against a financial services providers for breaches of money laundering and terrorism funding provisions; and
- Acting for insurers, as coverage counsel, in relation to analysing complicated financial and regulatory claims surrounding manipulation of wholesale interbank interest rates and associated pecuniary penalties.