Insurance Corp. of Ireland, Ltd. v. Compagnie Des Bauxites De Guinee

Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG) (plaintiff), a mining company majority-owned by Pennsylvania-based Halco, Inc., held business-interruption insurance partly through a group of 21 mostly foreign excess insurers (defendants). After CBG suffered a business interruption exceeding $10 million and the excess insurers refused to pay, CBG sued in Pennsylvania federal court; the insurers challenged personal jurisdiction and moved for summary judgment on that ground. When CBG sought discovery on the insurers' Pennsylvania contacts to oppose that motion, the insurers repeatedly delayed producing the material, prompting the court to warn that further noncompliance would lead it to presume, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b)(2)(A), that personal jurisdiction existed. The insurers still didn't produce the material, and the court found jurisdiction existed on that basis.