Andy Muha is a member of the firm’s Insurance Recovery Group. For over 20 years he has represented policyholders in matters involving issues and disputes under a variety of insurance coverages, including general liability, excess liability, directors’ and officers’ liability, employer’s liability, employment practices liability, crime and employee defalcation, and cyber liability. In this role, he has helped clients recover hundreds of millions of dollars of insurance coverage through both litigation and the negotiation of insurance claim settlements, policy buy-backs by insurers, and coverage-in-place agreements. He has also provided advice to clients on contractual indemnification and other means of risk management beyond insurance provided by third parties, and he has counseled clients on insurance and risk management issues arising in mergers, acquisitions, and other combinations of business entities.
A special focus of Andy’s practice has been representing clients seeking a final resolution for various types of mass tort and long-tail liabilities. Andy has extensive experience with developing solutions for these situations using chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code and state dissolution statutes, and with pursuing and utilizing insurance coverage to fund those solutions. As part of that work, Andy has provided clients with strategic advice on, among other things, corporate restructuring, statutory process and procedure, the scope of relief available under various reorganization or dissolution regimes, and intersecting insurance recovery issues. He has litigated a variety of insurance-specific matters that frequently arise in mass tort chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, such as the extent to which insurance shared by debtors and non-debtors can be characterized as property of the bankruptcy estate, “insurance neutrality” concepts, and insurer standing to object to plan confirmation.
Additionally, Andy has represented clients in a host of complex commercial disputes that have not involved insurance coverage. In this role, he has litigated and tried cases involving claims for breach of contract and business-related torts. He also has represented clients in the defense of claims arising from mass disaster events, including those based on novel theories of sponsor and promoter liability, and tort claims based on various theories of derivative liability, including corporate successorship, veil-piercing, de facto merger, and ultra vires.
