AXA Assurances agrees to indemnify several hundred restaurant owners.

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SYSPEO / SIPA

This is an unprecedented decision to date for an establishment of this type.

The Annecy commercial court ordered the insurance company Axa to compensate a hotelier-restaurateur for its operating losses linked to the Covid-19 epidemic.

"This is Axa's first conviction on the merits on the basis of a contract applicable to all hoteliers-restaurateurs, this contract being distinct from that applicable to restaurateurs", said Wednesday Me Quentin Mugnier, counsel for this hotelier-restaurateur of the resort of Les Gets (Haute-Savoie).

By this decision dated December 22, of which AFP obtained a copy, the court ordered Axa to pay a provision of 60,000 euros to the plaintiff while awaiting the final quantification of its operating losses via a legal expertise.

Axa had refused any compensation

Initially, the insurer refused any compensation, highlighting a clause in the contract stipulating that the operating loss guarantee does not apply if the interruption of activity affects several establishments in the same region or at the national level.

The judges ruled that this clause should be considered "an exclusion clause" but that the insurer had not identified it as such.

An exclusion clause must be clearly visible in the contract, with a presentation in very visible characters, as required by the Insurance Code.

The court therefore ruled this clause null and void and decided that the “operating loss following administrative closure” guarantee was due.

Axa will appeal the judgment

This decision “potentially concerns all hotel and restaurant owners insured by Axa, ie a few thousand contracts on national territory,” said Mugnier.

Axa France has indicated that it wants to "appeal the judgment of the Annecy commercial court".

"It will be up to the Court of Appeal of Chambéry to decide," said the insurer.

Since the start of the first confinement, many restaurant owners who are customers of the Axa company have taken it to court with contrasting decisions depending on the jurisdiction.

Some courts have condemned it while others have dismissed the plaintiffs.

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