Our roots in the surety industry go back to the 1980s when one of our team members, Richard White, drafted the ABI model form of bond and the accompanying guidance notes. Our surety team are internationally recognised experts in performance bonds, guarantees and indemnities and are the UK’s largest dedicated surety construction specialist team.
We advise sureties on a variety of matters covering a wide range of sectors and regularly act for many household surety names, including ACE, Aviva, Euler Hermes, HCC, QBE and Zurich.
We deal with all aspects of surety from drafting complex bonds and the associated security documentation, including reinsurance and co-surety/ risk sharing agreements, to defending any bond calls. Our work in defending any bond calls informs our approach to our drafting of the bonds and associated documentation.
Gateley’s surety team has many years’ collective experience in advising on all kinds of surety bonds. This expertise, married with our bespoke approach and dedication to building long-lasting client relationships based upon a clear understanding of our client’s underwriting and claims strategies and policies, means you can expect a service which takes into account not only your specific needs, but one which is truly personal. Not to mention, an array of additional legal and consulting services from across the Group.
We can advise on both contentious and non-contentious issues relating to any surety, drawing on the support of other specialists across the Gateley group when required. We help sureties and brokers to create novel and innovative bond solutions, deal with bond calls that may arise and assist sureties with all recoveries. We help clients through issues such as tricky bond wordings and deal with and resolve disputes. We strive to add value by helping clients keep up to date with new cases, changes and developments that could impact their work.
Drawing on the support of other specialists across the Gateley group when required, our surety insurance team advise on both contentious and non-contentious issues relating to any surety.
Our non-contentious expertise covers: performance and retention bonds on large PFI projects; the underlying building contracts on a project; advance payment bonds and other on-demand wordings; pension bonds; bespoke bonds and proposed variations to standard bond wordings; indemnity wordings; and issues around the insolvency and restructuring of large groups of construction companies.
The contentious work covered by our surety insurance team includes: disputes over the liability and quantum of bond claims; breach of contract, damages and loss and expense claims; claims for delay and disruption, extension of time and liquidated ascertained damages; defective works and design liability disputes; and disputes over the wording of ‘on-demand’ and ‘conditional’ bonds.