The insurance group Axa has reached an agreement with several hundred restaurateurs to compensate “a substantial part” for their operating losses linked to the Covid-19 crisis, its boss Thomas Buberl announced on Tuesday.
The catering sector “represents 20,000 contracts on our seven million policyholders and our 300,000 company contracts in France. Very few of them were insured against the risk of operating loss without damage. For them we we have implemented extra-contractual solidarity measures, “said Mr. Buberl at the group’s general meeting.
However, “a small minority of the contracts were not 100% clear in their wording. In this case, we favored dialogue to find solutions,” he added. “We have reached an agreement with several hundred of these restaurateurs so that we can cover a substantial part of their costs and we will continue this dialogue to work with each restaurateur to find a solution in the event of a contract that was not clear” , continued Mr. Buberl.
Mediated procedures
This announcement comes after several restaurant customers of Axa have sued the insurer, accusing it of refusing to compensate their operating losses due to containment.
Last week, the Parisian restaurateur Stéphane Manigold and his insurer Axa announced Tuesday that they had reached an agreement, putting an end to a highly publicized dispute concerning the compensation of these losses. At the end of an emergency summary procedure in late May, the Paris Commercial Court had ruled in favor of the restaurant owner, who considered that Axa was evading its obligations regarding the four establishments it runs in Paris.
Other disputes, however, continue. In another procedure, the judge of summary proceedings of the commercial court of Bordeaux ordered a chartered accountancy in the litigation opposing Axa to a Girondin restaurateur of the Arcachon basin.
The Crédit Mutuel group has also been sued via an interim procedure by a restaurant owner in Annecy. In this case, however, the court considered that it was not in a position to settle this dispute.
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