Equitas chief: Berkshire Hathaway deal was built on a decade of work.

The deal that saw Berkshire Hathaway Inc. absorb the liabilities of Equitas was built on a decade of solid work within the runoff vehicle, according to Scott P. Moser, chief executive officer of Equitas.

"The agreement is a defining event in the life of Equitas," Moser told the 2007 Congress of the Association of Run-Off Companies at Merchant Taylors' Hall in London.

Equitas is the reinsurance vehicle set up to run off pre-1993 non-life liabilities at Lloyd's. In October 2006, the National Indemnity Co., which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, agreed to provide up to $7 billion in reinsurance for Equitas's liabilities, freeing Lloyd's and its investors of future exposures.

Berkshire Hathaway, controlled by Warren Buffett, will also run Equitas and take on its employees.

Moser appeared confident the deal will get the necessary regulatory and other approvals to go ahead. If this happens, he said, it will be the second-biggest reinsurance deal in history. The largest, he noted, was Equitas itself.

Equitas has taken a determined approach to claims handling, pursuing early evaluation of complaints and insisting on documentation and reliable evidence, for instance, in asbestos cases, Moser said.

Since 2001, Equitas has paid more than $3 billion in 48 major asbestos settlements, Moser said. Its approach to asbestos, he added, has since found echoes in the criteria of the American Bar Association and in the legislation of seven U.S. states.

Equitas insisted asbestos claims must be backed up by evidence of both the disease and the defendant's responsibility for causing it.

Moser told the conference Equitas, which was launched in 1996, has paid out more than $25 billion in claims and has resolved 49 of its top 50 pollution cases.