Biography: Insurance & Reinsurance

After two years leading the legal department of Companhia de Seguros Aliançada Bahia, in 1984 ErnestoTzirulnik founded the first law firm in Brazil dedicated to insurance law. Since then, Ernesto Tzirulnik Advocacia – a boutique law firm which relies on a highly qualified and committed team of specialists to render precise, custom-made and extremely technical services – has been the most reliable name in Brazil for insurance, reinsurance and related matters.

Besides an unmatched academic background in the insurance field, Tzirulnik is universally recognised for its litigation profile, but also for combining the skills of sophisticated negotiation, strategy and diplomacy. He also advises, including on the drafting of contracts and tailor-made insurance policies, and provides full support during lost adjustment procedures, mediation and arbitration.

He has participated in almost all relevant insurance, reinsurance and civil liability cases in Brazil, including representing the insured's interest in the largest indemnification ever paid regarding an inland accident in Brazil (over US$500 million) and the restructuring of a life insurance policy in Brazil, bringing back to balance more than 800,000 insurance contracts. He has also been involved in the largest insurance claims in Latin American countries, including in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

He is well known for the firm's capacity to address complex matters with a unique strategy and approach to the law. To name a few, Tzirulnik represented Sul America Seguros and their reinsurers in the largest judicial matter involving an insurance contract in Brazil, in which the insured claimed an indemnification of over US$166 million. He also won a US$60 million lawsuit related to a fire insurance policy after proving that the insured, an automobile industry, had committed fraud.

Tzirulnik represents Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) against IRB-Brasil Re on the first lawsuit of its kind in Brazil, aiming to compel IRB to participate in the renewal of CSN's all risks insurance policy. He also represented CSN on a very well-known billion-dollar lawsuit involving Port of Itaguai. Most recently, he has been engaged by the insureds in a claim of US$1.2 billion related to the disturbances that took place in 2010 during the construction of Jirau Power Plant, a case which involves the biggest Brazilian insurers and a number of London and international reinsurers.

Throughout his career Tzirulnik has written several articles and papers on insurance law. He wrote the first and only book ever published in Brazil about loss adjustment, the first book to comment on the insurance contract after the edition of the Brazilian civil code of 2002, and was the first Brazilian author to have an article published in Assicurazioni – Rivista di diritto, economia e finanza delle assicurazioni private.

Tzirulnik is a founding member and currently the president of IBDS (Brazilian Institute of Insurance Law). He acted as the chairman of the committee of legal specialists gathered by IBDS that wrote the draft of the first Brazilian law project on the contract of insurance. This law project, which is running before the Brazilian National Congress, is considered a priority by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, and may be approved in the near future.