N Brown says Allianz seeking additional £36m in court claim
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Wednesday 16 Jun 2021
(Sharecast News) - N Brown said on Wednesday that Allianz Insurance is claiming up to an additional £36m in compensation in a claim against one of its subsidiaries, JD Williams.
The company, which also owns Jacamo and Simply Be, is currently involved in a claim and counterclaim with Allianz Insurance regarding the sale of historical insurance products.
"The claim and counterclaim are extremely complex, and proceedings remain at an early stage, with each party only recently having completed a long disclosure exercise," it said.
"We continue to gather detailed and factual expert and witness evidence in relation to multiple elements of the claim and counterclaim. N Brown has concluded that these issues mean it is not possible to reliably estimate the amount of any potential financial outflow and has, therefore, not made provision for this claim at this time and instead a contingent liability has been disclosed."
N Brown said Allianz has now issued a further application to the Court, seeking to increase the scope of its original claim in relation to a further customer redress exercise yet to be undertaken.
The case is currently scheduled for trial in March 2022.
At 0815 BST, the shares were down 10% at 57p.
Shore Capital analyst Clive Black said: "Clearly, we have to watch and wait the outcome of the legal proceedings and given the complexity and early stage of the process, it would not be appropriate to comment on the likely success or otherwise of the claim and counterclaim processes.
"Whilst so, there will undoubtedly be a feeling of frustration on behalf of N Brown shareholders in reading this news as the group has been through a sustained period where legacy matters have involved cash outlays from a dispute with HMRC through to a series of exceptional items and provisions that drew heavily on Company resources.
"As such, the very good re-engineering work undertaken in FY21 delivered a much stronger group financial constitution and a platform for CEO, Steve Johnson, to see through his sensible and encouraging change programme."
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