Future legal action by a group of Lloyd's private investors has been quashed after its latest compensation claim failed in the High Court.

More than 1,000 Lloyd's Names lost a £1bn case against the Treasury after the Commercial Court ruled in favour of the government.

The action, which began in July, alleged that successive UK governments had breached their responsibility under a European insurance directive for more than two decades, leading to significant losses in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In a lengthy and detailed judgment, Mr Justice Gordon Langley ruled that the law did not allow private individuals to bring damage suits against the government.

He added that the Department for Trade and Industry, which was responsible for insurance regulation in 1997, had not misled the Names and was not responsible for the delay in bringing the action to court.

Charles Gordon, head of insurance and reinsurance at law firm DLA Piper, said the judgment should now put an end to successive compensation claims against Lloyd's and the government.

He told Insurance Times: "I wonder now with Equitas securing a reinsurance arrangement with Berkshire Hathaway together with this judgment, whether it might persuade those remaining Names to stop any further confrontation.

"There is obviously a hard core of Names that might not accept that idea, but I would certainly think it would discourage any future action."

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