NY - Xerox's Y2K Claim to Proceed in Court

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[Fair use for education and research purpose only]

Note: I am trying to find the full article.

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Title: Xerox's Y2K Claim to Proceed in Court

NEW YORK, Mar 29, 2000, (A. M. Best via COMTEX) -- A New York appellate court has denied Xerox Corp.'s attempt to dismiss its insurer's lawsuit that asks a judge whether it can deny claims for Xerox's Year 2000 remediation costs.

The Appellate Divisi... -SNIP-

http://www.newsre.com/display_news.asp?doc_id=CT2000089u9024

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 29, 2000

Answers

[Fair use for education and research purpose only]

Title: Xerox Plans to Cut 3,000 to 5,000 Jobs, Take a Big Charge for First Quarter

March 29, 2000

Xerox Corp. may cut 3,000 to 5,000 jobs and take a restructuring charge of 500-$700 million. The company is reacting to the previous years poor fiscal performance. Xerox may merge some of its operations such as human resources and will reduce the number of jobs it has targeted as redundant in areas such as middle management and administrative support positions.

For additional information refer to The Wall Street Journal or go to http://www.wsj.com.

Copyright ) 2000 by Northern Light Technology Inc.

http://library.northernlight.com/UU20000329080000029.html? cb=200&dx=2006&sc=0#doc

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 29, 2000.


A little long, but here's the full article:

(By Theresa Miller, senior associate editor, BestWeek: millert@ambest.com)

Xerox's Y2K Claim to Proceed in Court

NEW YORK, Mar 29, 2000, (A. M. Best via COMTEX) -- A New York appellate court has denied Xerox Corp.'s attempt to dismiss its insurer's lawsuit that asks a judge whether it can deny claims for Xerox's Year 2000 remediation costs.

The Appellate Division, First Department, ruling allows American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co. to ask a judge whether Xerox is entitled to coverage for at least $183 million it spent on to update its computers to prevent Y2K problems.

Y2K problems could have been caused by older computer software that expresses dates using just the last two digits of the year. As a result, outdated systems could have reverted to the year 1900 or crashed as the calendar turned to 2000, causing business interruption or other major losses.

American Guarantee, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based subsidiary of Zurich U.S., had denied Xerox's claims to pay for Y2K-remediation costs. A declaratory judgment filed July 1 in New York Supreme Court in New York County asks a judge to decide whether Xerox is entitled to coverage.

Xerox had argued that the federal Y2K law prevents American Guarantee from bringing the case to court. However, since Xerox has sought a judicial remedy through its own suit, that argument is rendered "academic," the court ruled.

In its suit, Xerox said the insurer broke its contract when it decided it wouldn't pay for the cost to repair or replace computers to make them Year-2000 compliant (BestWire, July 8, 1999).

Xerox filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Connecticut on July 2, the day after American Guarantee asked a court for a declaratory judgment saying it didn't have to pay the costs.

Several such actions were filed last year and early this year. Kmart and ITT are among the companies that recently filed efforts to force insurers to pay Y2K costs. Also, Nike, a Michigan school district, the Port Authority of Seattle, GTE and Unisys Corp. sued their insurers.

Generally, the companies argue that insurers should pay for the costs based on sue-and-labor clauses in their insurance policies.

Those clauses require policyholders to repair property in order to prevent imminent and more-expensive damage, with insurers covering the costs of those repairs. The sue-and-labor clause traces its history to maritime insurance. Often, insurers would pay for repairs to a sinking ship, or dumped cargo, to avoid having to pay the cost of a new ship.

Insurers, however, argue that Y2K-remediation costs don't stem from the type of imminent failure that a sinking ship faces.

Zurich U.S. has an A+ (Superior) rating from A.M. Best Co. For the first nine months of 1999, the company had net premiums written of $2.3 billion and policyholders surplus of $2.9 billion, according to A.M. Best data.

Copyright (C) 2000 by A. M. Best Company, Inc.

-- Marcel Lotens (yadda@netbox.org), March 30, 2000.


Marcel,

Many thanks for posting this article...much appreciated.

Dee

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 30, 2000.


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