The WA Supreme Court has ruled QBE must pay $10 million plus interest for a professional indemnity (PI) claim held by a company that has since been deregistered.

QBE is contractually bound to the policy because liabilities payable to the plaintiffs occurred before Australian Stockbroking and Advisory Services (ASANDAS) ceased to exist.

WA Chief Justice Peter Quinlan rejected QBE’s defence that two exclusions in the financial institutions civil liability PI policy apply to the liability ASANDAS owed to three investment companies making the claim.

The three companies had won a separate case in the Federal Court against ASANDAS over losses suffered.

But they did not receive the $12.2 million in damages before ASANDAS became deregistered in 2016 and its authorised representative Stripe Capital was liquidated.

The companies then sought to recover the money by making a claim against the QBE policy, which had an indemnity limit of $10 million for each claim and an aggregate limit of $10 million for all claims.

QBE declined to answer an insuranceNEWS.com.au query as to whether it plans to appeal the decision.