Final adjudication
A clause conditioning the intentional-conduct exclusion on a final decision, preserving the advance of defense costs until every appeal is exhausted.
The final adjudication clause makes the intentional-conduct exclusion in a directors' policy depend on a definitive, non-appealable court decision. For an executive facing criminal exposure, it is the line in the contract that matters most, and the reason is economic as much as legal. On conviction, the exclusion almost always bars the indemnity. What the executive is really buying is the advance of defense costs, which runs to hundreds of thousands of euros in the first year of proceedings alone. Without the clause, the insurer can apply the exclusion on its own assessment and cut off costs at indictment, exactly when the insured needs them and when the ability to fund a defense decides the outcome. Three wordings are found, and they are far apart. The most protective requires a final decision in the underlying proceeding itself. An intermediate one accepts a decision rendered in a separate action. The least protective settles for the insurer's own assessment, and it protects nothing.
For a security chief prosecuted for obstruction, the distance between a final-adjudication wording and a mere-assessment one is the distance between being defended and holding a piece of paper.
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