Emilie Civatte
Emilie.Civatte@kennedyslaw.com
+44 20 7667 9777
Download contact card
Profile
Emilie is a Legal Director who joined Kennedys' London office in 2012. She is dual-qualified in England & Wales and France.
Emilie studied in France and in England, and holds an LLM from the University of Kent in Canterbury awarded in 2009. She also holds a Masters of Law from the University of Paris Assas awarded in 2010.
Her focus is on motor/personal injury and product liability/life sciences claims.
Emilie acts for insurers and manufacturers in relation to product liability litigation, with a focus on mass tort and group litigation (including the ongoing NOx emissions and statutory public inquiries). She has considerable experience in handling court expert investigations and expert evidence on complex technical issues, in England and abroad.
Her work also covers cross-border cases and litigation in foreign jurisdictions which she runs for British and American insurers and insureds from London. Her caseload spans several jurisdictions including England, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Canada and the US.
Emilie regularly acts as monitoring counsel in medical devices claims in EMEA jurisdictions, assisting and briefing local counsel, pro-actively working towards an early resolution of claims etc.
Emilie has considerable experience in managing motor and personal injury claims (including fatalities) on behalf of British and foreign insurers in Europe and the UK including advice on liability and compensation awards, including in relation to claims going back to over 10 years.
Increasingly she also acts before the English courts on behalf of foreign insurers where foreign law is applied, with issues of jurisdiction also arising. She defended a dependency claim pleaded at the highest level for any single “injury” case in English legal history (ES & Others v Groupama Méditerranée v Goodyear [2018] EWHC 2594 (QB)).
Emilie has significant experience in auditing foreign books of business, formally or not, on behalf of British insurers and is often asked to assist British and American insurers with their claims handling operations in Europe.
Emilie regularly delivers training to clients and presents at seminars and webinars on issues regarding product liability, personal injury, jurisdiction and applicable law as well as handling claims in foreign jurisdictions and/or claims with a cross-border issue.
She contributed to the Chambers & Partners’ 2023 Collective Redress & Class Actions as well as the 2023 Healthcare: Medical Devices global practice guides and the 2023 Product Liability Laws and Regulations guide of the International Comparative Legal Guides. Over the past few years, she has regularly written for Lexology about product liability.
Emilie is a member of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL), the Product Liability Forum of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the Paris Bar Association.
She contributed to editions of the Kennedys Global Legal Handbook, a guide on the main legal and procedural issues now covering 53 jurisdictions around the world.
Qualifications and admissions
- Qualified in England and Wales in 2012
- Qualified in France in 2012
Work highlights
Personal injury/motor work:
- Representing several foreign insurers before the Courts of England & Wales in relation to accidents which happened abroad, often with complex issues relating to applicable law, foreign law, jurisdiction and expert evidence;
- Acted on behalf of European insurers and a market of reinsurers in relation to a fatality claim litigated in England. This included a dependency claim pleaded at the highest level for any single “injury” case in English legal history (£195m) and a connected product liability claim (ES & Others v Groupama Méditerranée v Goodyear [2018] EWHC 2594 (QB));
- Assisting with the run off of an old Lloyd’s syndicates for claims in Metropolitan France, Tahiti and Canada;
- Currently handling deterioration claims subject to French law on behalf of British insurers in which claimants are seeking additional compensation sometimes over 20 years after the index accidents;
- Assisting British and foreign insurers for cases before the French courts (e.g.: ski accidents, travel accidents, injury during fireworks displays etc);
- Acted on behalf of a foreign insurer in a personal injury claim brought in England following an accident in France with issues of applicable law (Gary Owen v William Galgey & Others [2020]);
- Managed a £13 million claim involving a minor who was severely brain damaged after a car accident in France;
- Managed a £12 million claim subject to French law involving a severely injured child, which was eventually settled with a substantial discount for our clients;
- Assisted a worldwide leader in the car rental business with their operations and claims handing services in Europe and supervising several of their claims in the Netherlands, Belgium and France;
- Conducted several audits of books of insurance business abroad, including a formal audit for a foreign client for regulatory purposes and another for a potential takeover of another entity.
Product liability work:
- Acting for interested entities in relation to the Infected Blood Inquiry;
- Representing manufacturers of gynaecological products in litigation in the UK and Europe;
- Advising car manufacturers in the context of NOx emissions litigation;
- Advising insurers on complex issues of applicable law and jurisdiction in product liability litigation involving several countries (England, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands), and in particular which jurisdiction would be the correct forum to bring our clients’ recovery action;
- Acting as monitoring counsel on behalf of a worldwide medical device manufacturer in relation to claims in the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and France;
- Assisted a market of British and foreign reinsurers in a multimillion recovery action in France following an explosion at a petrochemical plant abroad after allegation of product defect;
- Successfully assisted a British insurer for a product liability claim arising from a hurricane before France’s Civil Supreme Court resulting in an adverse appeal decision being quashed;
- Assisted a worldwide manufacturer for a claim made following a large fire at a storage facility with associated issues about jurisdiction and applicable law;
- Assisted two British insurers in relation to expert investigation and appeal proceedings in France following the construction of a warehouse;
- Assisted British insurers and a US manufacturer in a complex expert investigation and subsequent court proceedings in France relating to the construction of an automated carpark.
Insurance and reinsurance
Life sciences
Transport and logistics
Travel and tourism