CFM Piles
United States Delegation Journal
USDel (PC) (Journal) 40
The Chairman drew the Commission’s attention to the necessity of speeding up its work in view of the October 5th deadline and urged the members to consider what measures might be taken. He suggested that it might be necessary to have evening meetings or to arrange for longer sessions.
Mr. Gregory (U.K.) explained the basis of the special provisions for insurance proposed by the U.K. Delegation (Annex 4B of the Rumanian treaty),87 emphasizing the special character and problems of the insurance business and the importance either of enabling the [Page 440] companies to resume their business with their present reserves, which would be accepted by Rumania as adequate cover, or of requiring Rumania to reconstitute their reserves. M. Rasovitch (Yugoslavia) spoke against the U.K. proposal, asserting that it would grant exceptionally favorable treatment to certain U.N. nationals and thus violate the principle of equality of treatment, and that the provisions of Article 24 adequately safeguarded the interests of U.N. property owners in Rumania. M. Hajdu (Czechoslovakia) said that either the insurance business was adequately protected by Article 24, in which case no special provisions were necessary, or that the U.K. proposal was intended to secure exceptionally favorable treatment for the insurance business, in which case the proposal was contrary to equality of treatment. He also described as a dangerous precedent the provision which would exempt U.N. insurance companies from any legislation more onerous than that to which they were subject before the war. M. Gerashchenko (U.S.S.R.) also objected to the U.K. proposal, adducing the arguments made by the previous speakers and asserting that the proposal was designed to secure a monopoly of the Rumanian insurance business by foreign companies.
Mr. Gregory spoke again in defense of the proposal. He withdrew paragraph 2 (regarding compensation for payments of claims arising out of the war) and indicated that paragraph 1 could be modified to provide national treatment for U.N. insurance companies. Mr. Thorp (U.S.) asked for a clarification of the following points: (1) the nature of the special difficulties confronting the insurance companies which required special provisions; (2) whether the insurance companies in questions were ones operating on the reserve principle or on the pooling principle; (3) the meaning of the grant of “full facilities”; (4) whether the reserves in question were nominal only or were related to safety; (5) the effect as between individual companies of the provisions concerning the restitution of reserves. He concluded by saying that, although it was recognized that special problems might arise, the discussion had not indicated the special insurance problems which were not covered by Articles 24 and 30.
- The British proposals are contained in the draft treaty for Rumania as unagreed provisions; see vol. iv, p. 86.↩