The Virginia Supreme Court surprised us today.  It issued its opinion (attached) on rehearing in AES Corp. v. Steadfast Insurance Co., hardly changed from its original decision finding that the allegations in Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. did not constitute an occurrence.  The concurrence, however, is substantially altered, and it is there that one can get a taste of the mischief to which this decision may lead. We have blogged this subject on several occasions.  In a nutshell, AES sought coverage for climate change liability claims asserted by claimant In...

 Imagine an industry.  Let’s make it a high technology industry.  And we’ll make it risky.  It will be a new technology, linked to other new technologies.  We’ll have over a dozen companies in this industry and some of them will partner with their suppliers or their customers, just as established industries do.  And just because it is new technology doesn’t mean that old issues don’t matter.  Each company will still have to satisfy investor expectations, raise money, hope demand stays ahead of supply, beat out their competition (...