George Bachrach has spent his entire professional life representing surety companies in working out solutions and resolving difficult problems arising from the sureties’ contract and commercial surety bonds that support the principal’s performance of its underlying obligations to obligees and claimants under contractual agreements and various statutes. His work, both outside and inside the bankruptcy arena, has involved the investigation of surety claims and defenses, working out performance bond, payment bond and commercial surety bond claim solutions, and enforcing the sureties’ indemnity, salvage and subrogation rights to reimbursement for any losses incurred under the bonds.
Mr. Bachrach was born in and grew up in Maine, and loves swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine. As a result of his Maine upbringing, he played competitive ice hockey until he was 57 years old. At some point in his legal career, he became a better surety lawyer than golfer or hockey player.
Mr. Bachrach is regular co-host of Surety Today® a live telebriefing/podcast program. The podcast can be found on Google Music, iTunes, Stitcher, and PodBean.
Mr. Bachrach has represented numerous surety companies over the years, including sureties that operate in large, medium and small contractor and subcontractor markets and sureties that underwrite large, medium and small commercial surety accounts.
- Member: Surety Claims Institute
- Member: National Bond Claims Association
- Member: Maryland State Bar Association
- Member: American Bar Association
- Chair, Fidelity and Surety Law Committee (FSLC) of the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association from August, 2001, to August, 2002
Mr. Bachrach has been active in the surety industry, as counsel for his surety company clients and by contributing his time, through the Fidelity and Surety Law Committee of the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section of the American Bar Association and other surety professional associations and organizations, to the education of several generations of surety professionals – outside counsel and consultants and inside attorneys and employees – through program presentations and the publication of books, articles and papers as listed below.
Surety Today® 30-minute tele-briefings on narrowly-focused topics for surety company attorneys and surety claims professionals.
A. The Contract Bond Surety’s Subrogation Rights
- Co-Editor, The Contract Bond Surety’s Subrogation Rights (George J. Bachrach, James D. Ferrucci & Dennis J. Bartlett, eds., 2013)
- Program Chair for the 2013 FSLC Spring CLE Program (May 2 to 3, 2013) entitled “The Contract Bond Surety’s Subrogation Rights.”
- Co-author, “The Surety’s Subrogation Rights,” Chapter 23 of The Law of Suretyship, 2d Ed. (Edward G. Gallagher, ed., 2000)
- Editor, The Subrogation Database: Cases Concerning the Subrogation Rights of the Contract Bond Surety (1995), updated on January 31, 1998
- Editor, Subrogation Rights of the Contract Bond Surety (1990)
B. The Surety’s Indemnity Agreement
- Co-Editor, The Surety’s Indemnity Agreement – Law & Practice, 3d Ed. (Mike F. Pipkin, Marilyn Klinger, George J. Bachrach & Tracey L. Haley, eds., 2023)
- Co-Editor, The Surety’s Indemnity Agreement – Law & Practice, 2d Ed. (Marilyn Klinger, George J. Bachrach & Tracey L. Haley, eds., 2008)
- Co-Editor, The Surety’s Indemnity Agreement – Law & Practice (Marilyn Klinger, Gary Judd & George J. Bachrach, eds., 2002)
- Editor, The Agreement of Indemnity: Practical Applications by the Surety (1989)
- Co-author, “The Agreement of Indemnity – The Surety’s Handling of Contract Bond Problems: The Enforcement of the Surety’s Rights against the Principal and the Indemnitors under the Agreement of Indemnity” (1989)
C. Salvage by the Surety
- Co-Author, “Surety Salvage – Indemnity and Subrogation,” Chapter 146 of 11 New Appleman on Insurance Law, Library Edition (Michael Keeley, Christopher Ward, Armen Shahinian & Jeffrey E. Thomas, eds., 2014)
- Editor, Salvage by the Surety (1998)
- Author, “The Surety’s Rights to Obtain Salvage – Exoneration, Reimbursement, Subrogation, and Contribution,” Chapter 1 of Salvage by the Surety (George J. Bachrach, ed., 1998)
D. Contract Surety/Bankruptcy Issues
- Contributor, “Surety Claims in Bankruptcy,” Chapter VI of Surety Aspects of Bankruptcy Law and Practice (Chad L. Schexnayder & Michael E. Collins, eds., 2021)
- Co-author, “The Surety’s Claim in Bankruptcy – Obtaining Reimbursement for the Surety’s Loss” (2009)
- Author, “The Principal’s Bankruptcy: What You Really Need to Know” and “The Surety’s Strategy and Rights When the Principal Files for Bankruptcy” (2009)
- Author, “The Surety’s Proof of Claim – Obtaining Reimbursement for the Loss” (2008)
- Author, “The Principal’s Sale of Substantially All of Its Assets in Bankruptcy – Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How, and the Rights of the Surety” (2002)
- Co-author, “The Principal’s Bankruptcy – Practical Problems and Potential Solutions in Handling Payment Bond Claims” (2001)
- Co-author, “The Surety’s Rights to the Contract Funds in the Principal’s Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Case,” 35 Tort & Ins. L.J. 1 (1999)
E. Financing the Surety’s Principal
- Co-author, “The Surety’s Financing of the Principal as the Surety’s Performance Under the Performance Bond” (2015)
- Co-author, “Financing the Principal,” Chapter 4 of the Bond Default Manual, 4th Ed. (Mike F. Pipkin, Carol Z. Smith, Thomas J. Vollbrecht & J. Blake Wilcox, eds., 2015)
- Co-author, “Financing the Principal,” Chapter 4 of the Bond Default Manual, 3d Ed. (Duncan L. Clore, Richard E. Towle & Michael J. Sugar, Jr., eds., 2005)
- Co-author, “The Financing Surety as a Performing Surety – Law and Practice” (2003)
- Co-author, “The ABC’s of the Surety Claims Process” (primarily the surety’s financing of the principal) presented to the Construction Industry CPAs/Consultants Association (CICPAC) (2003).
F. The Surety’s Performance Bond Rights and Options
- Program Consultant and Co-Editor for the 2011 FSLC Annual Mid-Winter CLE Program (January 21, 2011) entitled “The Critical Construction Issues Facing the Performing Surety.”
- Co-author, “The Performance Bond Surety’s Rights to the Contract Funds,” Chapter 4 of The Law of Performance Bonds, 2d Ed. (Lawrence R. Moelmann, Matthew M. Horowitz & Kevin L. Lybeck, eds., 2009)
- Author, “The Surety Performance Bond Lifeboat – Bailing Out and/or Salvaging Someone Else’s Wreck” (2007), republished as “A Primer for the Surety’s Handling of Performance Bond Claims” (2008)
- Editor for the Surety Program Written Materials for Takeover by the Surety, 2002 ABA/TIPS Fidelity and Surety Law Committee Spring Program in New Orleans, Louisiana in May, 2002.
- Chair and Moderator, “Takeover by the Surety: The Obligations That You Forget About (and Wish You Hadn’t)” (1999)
G. Commercial Surety/Bankruptcy
- Co-author, “The Commercial Surety’s Collateral in the Principal’s Bankruptcy Case,” Chapter 20 of The Law of Commercial Surety and Miscellaneous Bonds, 3d ed.(Samuel J. Arena, Jr., Kathryn M. Truman, Julie S. Alleyne, and Justin D. Wear, eds., 2022)
- Co-author, “The Commercial Surety’s Collateral in a Principal’s Bankruptcy Case,” Chapter 20 of The Law of Commercial Surety & Miscellaneous Bonds, 2d Ed. (Bruce C. King, Richard E. Towle & Samuel J. Arena, Jr., eds., 2012)
- Co-author, “The Commercial Surety’s Collateral in a Principal’s Bankruptcy Case” (2011)
- Author, “Surety Underwriting and Claims Handling With a Principal in Bankruptcy” (2009)
- Author, “The Surety’s Proof of Claim and Obtaining Reimbursement for the Surety’s Loss” (2005)
- Author, “Avoiding Loss and Obtaining Reimbursement in the Event of Loss Under the Indemnity Agreement” (2005)
- Author, “Customs Bonds and the Chapter 11 Principal” (1994)
H. Construction/Bankruptcy Issues
- Author, “Money and Time – The Critical Issues in Construction Industry Bankruptcies” (2009)
I. Other Publications on Surety Matters
- Co-author, “A Primer for the Restatement of the Law of Suretyship” (2016)
- Co-author, “The Surety and the Court of Federal Claims” (1995) and “The Surety and the Court of Federal Claims – Revisited” (1999)
- Co-author, Contract Surety (AFSB 152), Chapters 12 and 13 entitled “Contract Surety Claims” for the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters and the Insurance Institute of America (1992)
