Address Hotel blaze compensation plea rejected

DUBAI: The Dubai Commercial Court of Appeal, on Wednesday, upheld a judgment issued by a Court of First Instance that rejected an insurance company’s claim for Dhs1.25 billion from 6 contractors over the Address Hotel fire that broke out on New Year’s Eve 2015.

Orient Insurance Company paid Emaar Properties, the owner of the Address Hotel, Dhs1.25 billion in 2017 in compensation according to an insurance policy for losses resulting from the fire that broke into the 63-storey Address Hotel in downtown Dubai on New Year’s Eve. After making the payment, Orient filed a civil lawsuit at Dubai Courts demanding that contractors who worked on the design, construction, and maintenance of the hotel pay back the insurance claim it had paid to Emaar.

Accordingly, a competent technical committee was assigned to examine the claimed faults of the design, construction and maintenance of the Address Hotel, which contributed to the spread of the fire and causing the insurance company to pay huge compensation to Emaar Properties. The Court of First Instance rejected the insurance company’s claim, but the latter appealed the ruling.

The committee was excluded, while another committee was assigned to examine the building, in terms of design, construction and maintenance.

The committee was appointed by the court after reports from a previous committee were excluded because experts failed to present reports based on technical and realistic grounds. “The judgment cited reports by a seven-member expert committee that concluded the fire was caused by an electrical short-circuit housed within a spotlight,” Lawyer Sherif Heikal, entrusted by the contractor said.

“The technical findings of the seven-member committee concluded that there were no errors in the manner in which the building was constructed,” he added.