Business Email Scams (BEC) are becoming an increasing source of loss (think billions of dollars since 2013) to U.S. businesses, big and small. In Posco Daewoo Am. Corp. v. Allnex USA, Inc., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180069 (D.N.J. Oct. 31, 2017) a payee whose invoices totaling $630,058 mistakenly were paid by a customer to a third party as a result of a phishing scam, sought coverage for the loss under its own computer fraud coverage. A New Jersey federal district court held that no such coverage existed.

Posco Daewoo, which imported and exported chemicals, supplied its customer Allnex with a chemical product for which Allnex owed payment. In early 2016, an impostor posing as an employee of Posco Daewoo’s accounts receivable department, sent emails to an employee of Allnex, instructing Allnex to wire payments to four separate Wells Fargo bank accounts. Id. at *2. Allnex, without confirming the authenticity of the email or the Wells Fargo bank accounts, wired three separate payments to the Wells Fargo accounts, totaling $630,058. Id. After the fraud was discovered, Allnex recovered $262,444 of the stolen $630,058. The remaining $367,613.46 was not recovered. Id. at *3. Posco Daewoo alleged that Allnex still owed it the remaining $367,613.46 to satisfy the original outstanding receivables. Allnex, on the other hand, contended that the unrecovered wire payments satisfied the balance it owed to Posco Daewoo. Id. Read More