A British daily reports that North Korea is fighting a legal battle with a group of reinsurers including Lloyd's of London.

The Times reported in its online edition on Friday that the group accuses the communist country of making fraudulent claims to prop up its collapsing economy.

The report said that North Korea's state-owned Korea National Insurance Corporation (KNIC) is demanding 44 million euros from a group of reinsurers, including Lloyd’s syndicates, for damage it claims was caused in a helicopter crash in 2005.

The reinsurers, however, rejected the corporation’s demand, saying that the nature of North Korea's state-run system makes it impossible to trust and that the evidence submitted by the KNIC is suspect.

The North claims that a state-run Air Koryo helicopter crashed into a warehouse on the outskirts of Pyongyang, causing a fire that destroyed a large amount of humanitarian relief goods. The KNIC settled an insurance claim by the airline, which had compensated the owner of the warehouse, and claimed this back from its London reinsurers.