finance

As Microsoft services recover, a multi-day cloud outage is triggering complex business-disruption claims.

Corporate treasuries are just beginning to calculate losses from the multi-day outage and performance degradation of many core Microsoft services that began on Nov. 12, as the tech giant continues restoring Copilot, Microsoft 365, Outlook, and Teams connectivity.

“We’re seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected infrastructure,” said Charles Lamanna, executive vice president of Copilot, Agents, and Platform at Microsoft Inc. “We know our customers rely on our services to get important work done every day, and we regret the impact these outages had on those who depend on us. Our teams are reviewing what happened and how we can prevent similar issues going forward.”

A platform outage at a provider of Microsoft’s scale has concerned insurers because it can create aggregated exposure across cyber insurance policies, said Sasha Romanosky, a senior policy researcher at the global policy think tank RAND Corp.

Various cyber modeling companies like CyberCube Analytics Inc.; RMS, a subsidiary of Moody’s Corp.; and others, as well as carriers, brokers, and reinsurers, have modeled the risk using data from other historic cloud outages to estimate losses, he added.

“This one was longer than others, so observing the subsequent losses and claims will help us understand the shape of the loss curve,” said Romanosky. “In other words, is the loss from a 10-hour outage equal to just 10 times the loss from a one-hour outage; is it more; is it less?”

Making a Claim

No matter what, calculating losses will be a battle for forensic accountants, said Joshua Gold, a partner at the law firm Anderson Kill.

“Some cyber insurance covers system disruption no matter what the cause,” he said. “Other policies cover system disruption, but only if it’s at the hands of a cyber threat actor. Both are very common in policies today.”

However, insurance carriers take a hard line against business-disruption claims, commonly arguing that policyholders ultimately made up their losses one way or another through subsidiaries.

“Forensic accountants are usually quite good at providing a reasonable calculation of what would have been made but for the loss event,” said Gold. 

Companies should not delay notifying their cyber insurance carrier of their intent to file a claim and should provide an overview of the event and any lingering issues affecting their business, he added. “After that, keep constant dialogue with your insurance company, but commit much of this to writing. Phone calls to your broker or the 1-800 claims number aren’t good enough.”

Rob Daly writes about the economy and fintech. You can reach him at rdaly@gfmag.com.

Banque Misr’s planned sale of its UAE operations highlights the challenges of preserving vital Gulf financial ties.

Egypt likes to describe its relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council nations as those of brothers.

But those ties faced a test in August when the U.S. threatened sanctions against the United Arab Emirates subsidiary of Banque Misr, one of Egypt’s largest state-owned banks.

The stakes are high. Over the past decade, Egypt has consistently been the top destination for Gulf dollars. Cumulatively, GCC states have invested $106 billion in Egypt. Only the U.S. comes close, with $81 billion, according to the UN Trade and Investment GCC Investment Report released in October.

Given these deep-rooted investment, financial and trade ties, maintaining close relations with Gulf states is a priority for Cairo.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury said Banque Misr UAE had processed $1.8 billion for 103 companies linked to the Iranian regime between January 2024 and June 2026.

Owned by the Egyptian government, Banque Misr has operated in the UAE for more than five decades and maintains five branches.

The UAE is a major source of investment capital. Over the past five years, the country has invested $345 billion outside the GCC. For Egypt, the threat of sanctions on Banque Misr UAE could have significant implications for financial ties.

To avoid adverse impacts, Banque Misr has agreed to sell its UAE operations to the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), another state-owned lender.

Samriddhi Vij, Associate Fellow, Geopolitics, at the Observer Research Foundation Middle East, said that because both banks are state-owned, the deal aligns with Egypt’s broader financial sector priorities, with the core being a stable and vibrant sector.

“This does not necessarily mean the government directly initiated the deal,” she said, adding that the acquisition could be a commercial decision to consolidate operations and strengthen the international competitiveness of Egyptian banks.

Deep Financial Ties

For Egypt and the UAE, banking ties run deep. Half of the 10 GCC banks operating in Egypt are UAE lenders, serving as the central pillar of economic relations in terms of investment flows, trade settlements, and remittances. By facilitating efficient cross-border payments, businesses are also able to expand their operations.

Data show that last year, bilateral trade between Egypt and the UAE reached $9.7 billion, up 61.7% from $6 billion in 2024. With an estimated one million Egyptians living and working in the UAE, remittances from the Gulf state totaled $3.6 billion in 2025.

“For both countries, efficient cross-border payment systems are critical to reducing transaction costs,” noted Vij.

This is critical for the Central Bank of Egypt and the Central Bank of the UAE. In late September, the apex banks renewed a 5 billion dirhams ($1.3 billion) currency swap to promote greater use of local currencies in trade and financial settlements.

For NBE, the deal with Banque Misr is strategic, given that its presence in the UAE has been limited to a single branch inside the Dubai International Financial Center and a representative office in Dubai.

John Nijraini is a contributing writer based in Kenya.