Descendants of black American slaves said yesterday they planned to sue London's oldest insurance firm, Lloyds, for compensation for allegedly underwriting the ships used in the slave trade.

Their lawyer, Ed Fagan, said Lloyds played a significant part in the human trade and insisted black American slave descendants had as much right to damages as any other people subjected to genocide.

?Lloyds knew that what they were doing led to the destruction of the indigenous population,? Fagan, who is well-known for his role is fighting claims for victims of the Holocaust, told BBC radio. ?They took people, they put them on ships, and they wiped out their identity.?

Slavery was abolished in the British empire in the 1830s and around 30 years later in the United States. But more than 10 million people are thought to have been traded as slaves at west African ports and herded onto ships bound for America in the 1700s and early 1800s. Fagan, who is expected to file the claim in New York on Monday, rejected charges that the case was based on events too far in the past.

?Why is it too far fetched to say that blacks should be entitled to compensation for damages and genocide committed against them, when every other people in the world... that has been victimised in this way has been entitled to compensation??

A spokeswoman for Lloyds in London said the firm had not seen the claim, and so was not in a position to comment. But she added that previous claims regarding slavery involving lawyers had been dismissed with prejudice. One of the claimants, Deadria Farmer-Paellman, told BBC radio she had not doubt Lloyds bore some responsibility for her lack of identity.

?They are responsible because they played a role in enslaving African Americans ? or at least our ancestors,? she said. ?And part of the slave trade included genocide ? the destruction of ethnic and national identities.?