IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS

Lack of awareness of EU law standards and remedies within the legal profession

EU Directive 2009/103/EC on motor insurance

I have been consulted by a number of law firms on cases featuring one or more of the above mentioned lacunae (see MOTOR ACCIDENT VICTIMS DENIED JUSTICE) and I have been concerned to see how genuine claimants are being browbeaten into wrongly accepting the rejection of or a substantial reduction in their proper compensatory entitlement. 

As might be expected, insurers rely on our national law provisions where they suits them; that is entirely their prerogative.  However, this affords them numerous loopholes they are not entitled to under EU law, nor indeed, under our national law if properly construed in a European law consistent manner.  It is unfortunate that the defects in our national law provision are so extensive: they permeate extensive tracts of Part VI the Road Traffic Act 1988, the EC Rights Against Insurers Regulations 2002 as well as pervading the confusing panoply of private law agreements, supplementary revisions and often contradictory guidance notes that govern the Motor Insurers Bureau’s compensatory role. The illegality is so prevalent and egregious as to be scandalous.