World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Monday sued insurers to demand that they pay up on the buildings destroyed in the September 11 attacks.
Some insurers have suggested they might not make future payments owed for redevelopment because the original plan has been changed. Silverstein and the Port Authority, which owns the 16-acre site, say the money is essential to rebuilding.
The lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, demands that the insurers honour their payments even though an initial rebuilding plan was replaced by a new one agreed to in April.
The insurance companies named in the suit include St. Paul Travelers, Zurich American Insurance Co and Allianz AG. Silverstein leased the World Trade Centre shortly before the attacks and has the right to rebuild the complex. The developer and the insurers still have not resolved other lawsuits over how much the companies owe.
"The financing of the redevelopment plan ... depends in large part from the property/rental value insurance," the latest lawsuit says. "The defendants, however, have persistently sought to shirk their contractual obligations to pay insurance coverage."
Silverstein and the Port Authority said in the suit that they are seeking to establish that the reworked plan to develop the site "cannot provide an excuse for any defendant to avoid its obligations."
The lawsuit in the latest twist in almost five-years of wranglings between Silverstein and the insurance companies since the twin towers were destroyed in the September 11 attacks.