Wesolowski, Fenchurch, SDV launch SDV Fenchurch
Wesolowski Abogados, Fenchurch Law and Saxe Doernberger & Vita, together with their associated member firms in Asia, Europe and North America, have combined to create SDV Fenchurch, a global platform dedicated exclusively to representing policyholders and the insurance brokers that advise them. In Spain, the practice will operate under the name SDV Fenchurch Wesolowski.
Structured as a Swiss verein, SDV Fenchurch brings together specialist policyholder-advisory practices across eight jurisdictions: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Turkey and Singapore. The platform counts more than 90 lawyers dedicated to insurance coverage matters.
The founders share a single mandate: acting exclusively for policyholders in insurance-related disputes, a model that departs from the approach of most international firms with insurance practices, which typically represent both policyholders and insurers, and often primarily the latter.
For thirty years we have believed that policyholders deserve lawyers whose loyalty is never divided, said Tracy Saxe, President of SDV Fenchurch and founder of SDV. All the firms joining to create SDV Fenchurch share that objective: balancing the position of policyholders in their dealings with insurers while delivering legal work of consistent quality worldwide, she added.
In Spain, the quality of lawyers specializing in insurance law has been beyond question for decades, but those lawyers have almost without exception worked for insurers, without a specialized counterpart on the other side speaking the same technical language, said Pablo Wesolowski, President of SDV Fenchurch Wesolowski and founder of Wesolowski Abogados. From SDV Fenchurch Wesolowski we will keep filling that gap as we have done from Wesolowski Abogados, but now with an international structure, he added.
The international dimension of risk now demands an equally global and specialized legal response, said Javier Wesolowski, Managing Partner of SDV Fenchurch Wesolowski. For Wesolowski Abogados, being part of SDV Fenchurch means responding to that reality through a structure that combines international capacity with in-depth knowledge of each market, while maintaining in Spain the same level of proximity, specialization and independence that has defined the firm’s practice, he said.
SDV Fenchurch is organized as a Swiss-law verein, allowing member firms to serve clients as a coordinated single firm while remaining independently regulated legal entities in their respective jurisdictions. The structure was chosen to support expansion across major insurance jurisdictions while preserving the entrepreneurial culture and independence of each founding firm. Membership in the verein is selective, requiring exclusive dedication to policyholder representation and an established reputation in the local market.
The new verein responds to a market need for cross-border legal advice, as ownership structures, insurance programs and claims have long carried an international dimension while available legal advice for policyholders has remained largely domestic. A policy taken out by a US manufacturer, for instance, may be governed by New York law with disputes resolved through arbitration in London, while a program covering an infrastructure project in Asia may be governed by English law and subject to arbitration in Singapore.
The insurance market is global, and disputes arising from it have been global for some time, said David Pryce President of SDV Fenchurch and founder of Fenchurch Law. What was missing was a firm designed specifically to meet the needs of policyholders on that same global scale, combined with lawyers who retain deep roots and knowledge of their respective jurisdictions and insurance markets, he said.
While SDV Fenchurch’s lawyers have extensive litigation and arbitration experience, much of their current work is preventive and advisory in nature: strengthening policy wording before a claim arises, reviewing clauses and endorsements, tracking legislative and case-law developments, and providing legal support during coverage negotiations.
A central element of this model is the close, collaborative relationship with major insurance brokers worldwide, to whom SDV Fenchurch Wesolowski provides regulatory advice, said Pablo W. Valle, Partner at SDV Fenchurch Wesolowski. Member firms work in coordination with brokers including Aon, Gallagher, Howden, Marsh and Willis, advising both the brokers and their clients on coverage matters, jointly organizing training sessions and contributing to dispute resolution. SDV Fenchurch approaches coverage disputes with an eye toward clients’ long-term commercial relationships, working alongside brokers to reach solutions that preserve continuity in those relationships.
An increasingly important part of the firm’s work involves anticipating disputes before they become litigation, Saxe said, adding that lawyers now accompany clients’ brokers through renewal, explain what a new clause might mean when a claim arises two years later, or how a recent ruling has altered coverage a client believed it had secured. That conversation can now span a US policy, a London policy and a Singapore arbitration within a single firm, she said.
The platform has a track record advising in the construction and energy sectors, where business-interruption losses can run into hundreds of millions of dollars. SDV Fenchurch Wesolowski also advises insurance brokers, financial institutions and professional services firms, with established practices in directors’ and officers’ liability, representations and warranties and transactional risk, real estate and facilities, and marine transport and cargo.
Eight jurisdictions are the starting point, not the destination, said Pryce, adding that the firm intends to keep adding member firms and lawyers who share its objective, with opportunities expected soon in Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
There are excellent lawyers specializing in policyholder representation within full-service firms that also work for or defend insurers, and many have spent their careers managing that dynamic, Saxe said. Now, she added, those lawyers have a place to go where the entire firm works in a single direction.
