With nearly two decades of experience navigating the intersection of complex commercial litigation and risk management, Simon Glairy has become a leading voice on how high-stakes insurance disputes evolve within the judicial system. His expertise is particularly sought after in cases where multi-national corporations and global insurance syndicates clash over forum selection and jurisdictional dominance. Today, we sit down with Simon to discuss the recent procedural victory for Syngenta in the Delaware Superior Court, a case that serves as a masterclass in the risks of mid-stream litigation shifts. We explore the weight of discovery efforts involving millions of pages, the strategic nuances of tolling claims in international hubs like London, and how judicial efficiency often trumps a court’s own earlier skepticism regarding a case’s “proper” home.
When a case has been litigated for four years with over 700 docket entries, what specific risks do parties face when attempting a mid-stream forum shift? How does the production of millions of documents impact a judge’s willingness to grant a stay in favor of a dormant parallel proceeding?
Attempting to change venues after four years of active litigation is akin to trying to turn a massive cargo ship in a narrow canal; the momentum of the existing proceedings is incredibly difficult to overcome. Parties face the very real risk of being seen as tactical or dilatory, especially when the docket shows more than 700 entries of substantive work already performed by the court. In this specific paraquat coverage dispute, Syngenta produced a staggering 6.4 million documents, totaling over 52 million pages, which represents a massive investment of judicial and party resources. A judge is naturally loath to grant a stay when such an immense volume of evidence has already been integrated into the domestic discovery process. Forcing a shift at this stage would require a new court to navigate unfamiliar evidence rules and re-review millions of disputed documents, which is the antithesis of the efficiency courts strive to maintain.
Delaware courts often weigh the Cryo-Maid factors to determine the proper venue for complex insurance disputes. In cases where summary judgment motions are already pending, how do practical considerations of judicial efficiency outweigh a court’s earlier comments regarding which jurisdiction a dispute should ideally belong in?
The Cryo-Maid factors provide a framework for balancing convenience, but they are not a static checklist; they must reflect the current reality of the litigation. Even if a judge previously remarked that a dispute “belongs in London,” those words lose their bite if the parties have since spent years and millions of dollars litigating in Delaware. When summary judgment motions are already pending, the court has already “bought” the case, meaning it has invested the intellectual capital necessary to decide the merits. The practical reality is that resolving a case that is on the doorstep of a decision is far more efficient than sending it to a forum where it has sat dormant. In this instance, the court correctly identified that the “overwhelming” weight of practical considerations favored finishing what had been started in Delaware rather than following an abstract notion of where the case should have originated.
Many corporations file secondary claims in international jurisdictions like London to toll statutes of limitation while active litigation proceeds elsewhere. What specific steps should legal teams take to ensure these secondary filings are not successfully used as a pretext by opposing counsel to dismiss the primary domestic action?
Legal teams must be incredibly disciplined in how they characterize and manage these secondary filings, ensuring they are explicitly labeled as protective measures for tolling purposes. In the Syngenta case, the London claim was filed in late 2023 but remained relatively inactive, with no Particulars of Claim filed and no discovery taken, which helped demonstrate its secondary nature. To prevent these filings from being weaponized, counsel should avoid taking any substantive steps in the secondary forum that could be interpreted as “active” litigation or a preference for that venue. They must consistently communicate to both courts that the secondary action is a “just-in-case” measure intended only to preserve rights, not to supplant the primary jurisdiction. By keeping the secondary proceeding dormant, as was done here, the plaintiff can argue that the primary forum remains the only true site of active dispute resolution.
Concerns over inconsistent judgments often drive motions to move cases to a single forum. How do principles of comity and collateral estoppel function when a domestic court has already spent years reviewing evidence, and what are the long-term implications for insurers trying to force a change in venue?
When a Delaware court has spent four years deeply immersed in millions of pages of evidence, the risk of inconsistent judgments actually diminishes because the first court is so much further ahead in its analysis. Principles of comity suggest that an English court would likely respect the findings of a Delaware court that has already performed the heavy lifting of discovery and summary judgment. Collateral estoppel further protects the process by preventing parties from re-litigating issues that have been definitively decided in the more advanced proceeding. For insurers, this ruling is a stark warning: you cannot participate in years of discovery and then cry “hardship” or “inconsistency” at the eleventh hour. The long-term implication is that the “wait and see” strategy—where insurers litigate domestically and then try to pivot to London if the tide turns—is becoming increasingly untenable in Delaware.
What is your forecast for how this ruling will impact future forum-selection strategies in complex environmental and product liability insurance coverage cases?
My forecast is that we will see a much earlier and more aggressive push for forum selection at the very outset of litigation, as insurers realize they cannot rely on “judicial convenience” arguments once a case gains momentum. We will likely see insurers filing their own preemptive actions in preferred jurisdictions like London immediately upon receiving a notice of claim, rather than waiting for the policyholder to set the stage in Delaware. This ruling reinforces that a plaintiff’s choice of forum is a formidable hurdle, and the “point of no return” for a venue challenge arrives much sooner than many defense teams previously assumed. Ultimately, I expect more rigorous “forum-shopping” battles in the first six months of a case, as both sides realize that after the first million pages of discovery are produced, the cage is effectively locked.
