Equitas, the company set up in 1996 to manage the liabilities that nearly ruined the Lloyd’s insurance market, will hold meetings with US-based policymakers and UK-based individual liability holders - the Names - before the court hearing.

Equitas agreed in late 2006 for a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway behemoth to take on the liabilities, but the law did not then allow a transfer of the liabilities, only their reinsurance.

Hugh Stevenson, Equitas chairman, said: “This transfer and reinsurance will secure the position of the policyholders and mean that the Names will finally be able to walk away under English law. We would like to say to the Names that as best we can judge you no longer have to worry.”