Reform of ‘non-disclosure’ in UK marine insurance law: Exotic Approach or Original Understanding?
"Reform of `non-disclosure' in UK marine insurance law: Exotic Approach or Original Understanding? " Mr. Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit A marine insurance contract is a contract of utmost good faith (uberrimae fidei), which requires the duty of disclosure prior to the conclusion of a contract. This is essentially stated in ss. 17 and 18 of the Marine Insurance Act 1906. Despite the 100-year application of these provisions, the defects are shown and the injustice occurs. The voluminous case laws and their complexity suggest nothing else apart from that this area of law is highly problematic. The criticisms are essentially rested upon two grounds: (1) the material fact which rests upon the view of the `prudent insurer' makes it difficult for the assured to determine for himself the fact to be disclosed (2) in case of non-disclosure, the remedy of avoidance applies regardless of culpability of the party in breach. As such, the reform to the law is inevitable and the purpose of this thesis is to suggest how reform can be achieved. Two possible ways to bring the change to the law are considered. These are (1) to adopt the alternative solutions identified in other jurisdictions or (2) to re-consider whether the law on duty of disclosure as has been recognised since the seminal judgment of Lord Mansfield in Carter v. Boehm (1766) 3 Burr. 1905 has been correctly applied. This thesis concludes that the judgment of Lord Mansfield has been misunderstood in the UK and that, to constitute non-disclosure, only the deliberate intention is required and that the remedy of avoidance is justifiable upon the public policy ground. Such duty should be based upon the broad notion of good faith (bonge fide: ), a flexible concept of fairness and justice. In the end, the draft provisions are formulated to reflect these suggestions. Table of
The Duty of Disclosure in Insurance Contract Law
General consideration of duty of utmost good faith source of duty of disclosure duration of the duty at common law interpretations of the test of materiality - duty of disclosure by the insured interpretations of additional requirement of actual inducement reciprocity of principle of duty of disclosure post contractual duty of utmost good faith review of attempted reform self-regulation in insurance contract law and conclusion.
ATP-dependent S-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)glutathione transport in canalicular plasma membrane vesicles from rat liver.
Uptake of the thioether S-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)glutathione (DNPSG) in canalicular plasma membrane vesicles from rat liver is enhanced in the presence of ATP and exhibits an overshoot with a transient 5.5-fold accumulation of DNPSG. Stimulation by ATP is not caused by the generation of a membrane potential, based on responses of the indicator dye oxonol V. ATP-dependent uptake has an apparent Km of 71 microM for DNPSG and a Vmax of 0.34 nmol.min-1.mg of vesicle protein-1. Protein thiol groups are essential for transport activity as indicated by the sensitivity of DNPSG transport to sulfhydryl reagents. There is competitive inhibition with other thioethers, S-hexylglutathione (Ki = 66 microM), the photoaffinity label S-(4-azidophenacyl)glutathione (Ki = 56 microM), as well as with glutathione disulfide (Ki = 0.44 mM) and with the bile acid taurocholate (Ki = 0.61 mM). GSH (2 mM) or cholate (0.4 mM) does not inhibit. Both glutathione disulfide and taurocholate show ATP-dependent transport in the canalicular membrane vesicles which is inhibited by DNPSG. No ATP-dependent transport is found for GSH. Transport of DNPSG is also inhibited competitively by alpha-naphthyl-beta-D-glucuronide (Ki = 0.42 mM) but not by alpha-naphthylsulfate (2 mM), and there is substantial inhibition with the glucuronides from ebselen and p-nitrophenol. The results indicate that the canalicular transport system for DNPSG is directly driven by ATP and that the biliary transport of other classes of compounds may also proceed via this system.