14/12/2009 - Equitable’s new chief exec reviews his first 100 days
An odd article in the Daily Telegraph on 14 December which spent more column inches sanitising Vanni Treves’ eight year tenure such that it looks like he fought FOR policyholders and alongside EMAG! Notwithstanding, Chris Wiscarson, chief executive, seems to have started his tenure with high energy and an open mind. EMAG is seeking to build new bridges with Equitable Life.
"Chris Wiscarsom wants to focus on the future after 10 years of hurt..."
Mr Wiscarson adds that he will also be looking to invest the company's assets 'wisely'. These currently stand at about £7bn. "I felt some of the things we were invested in before were too risky. We had too many equities and property, so I've sold £100m in equities and put properties for sale as we want to be sure we can pay policyholders."
Read the article.
27/11/2009 - Equitable will move its administration
In Jan/Feb 2001 Chris Headdon and Charles Thomson negotiated a punitively expensive 10-year administration contract with HBOS subsidiary, Clerical Medical.
The first major initiative of the Society’s new chief executive, Chris Wiscarson - who took up his position on 1 September - was to negotiate a new admin contract. This one, which starts formally when the 10-year one ends in March 2011, it is claimed, will save Equitable £8m in its first year and it is apparently for 30 + years! It will involve 240 redundancies in Aylesbury and a possible shift of admin to Mumbai to the new operators, HCL Technologies. Read the press release from Equitable Life
It is to be noted that although Vanni Treves left Equitable Life in August, every single current director, including the new chairman Ian Brimecome, were appointed by Treves.
17/11/2009 - EMAG writes to Sir John
It had been EMAG’s intention to wait for sight of the Treasury’s revised instructions to Sir John before starting a dialogue, which we wanted to be based on a firm understanding of Sir John’s new remit. Not unreasonably, we expected that to be made available within a few days of the JR judgement on 15 October. To that end Paul Braithwaite wrote a letter to Sir John on 27 October explaining the EMAG’s board position. But the Treasury has caused one more delay and the board has hence decided to give Sir John sight now of EMAG’s 'Principles of Compensation' Report. Read EMAG’s two letters to Sir John.09/11/2009 - Ann Abraham before PASC
On 5 November Ann Abraham appeared before PASC to account for her year. EMAG directors attended. Much of the time was spent on Equitable. It was a frustrating performance for the lay viewer, since Ann Abraham preferred to leave responsibility squarely with MPs whilst keeping her head below the parapet. This article in the Independent captures the disappointment.
Watch the session.
28/10/2009 - EMAG met Equitable's new MD
On 14 October, three EMAG board members had an introductory meeting with Equitable's new managing director, Chris Wiscarson. Lines of communication have been established and EMAG's board has an open mind on a possible new era of co-operation.
28/10/2009 - New EMAG regional committee's
In October there have been new EMAG committee meetings in Manchester (South); Nottingham; Carshalton and South London; Medway; Stourbridge; Taunton; Southampton; Wirral- anf Birkenhead; Ealing; Essex andHertford. Have you checked out your local group yet?
28/09/2009 - Equitable board
Representatives of EMAG's board will be meeting the new chair and chief executive informally in mid-October. In addition to the new chairman and chief executive appointments (see below), Mark Earls, who joined ELAS in 2002, has now been made up from chief operating officer to executive director.
Read more about the appointment...
01/09/2009 - EMAG's regional activity gearing up
Subsequent to the meeting with 50 regional organisers on 11 July, the pace has quickened. There have been recent EMAG meetings to form organising committees in the Home Counties, North London, Gloucester, Reading, Edinburgh - with 10 more planned in September. Read a write-up of the Gloucester committee's formation meeting on 20th August
Now would be a very good time to join your regional group as the general election, which is sharpening the mind of ALL politicians, is probably only eight short months away.
Read More...
01/09/2009 - Will you sign this No 10 Petition?
"The 328 MPs who signed EDM 1423 asked the House to note that the Parliamentary Ombudsman had taken the very unusual step of using her powers under the 1967 Act (dubbed the nuclear option) of issuing a further and final report on Equitable Life. They said that the Government's response to the Parliamentary Ombudsman's earlier report was inadequate as a remedy for injustice and that the Government should accept the Ombudsman's recommendations on compensating policyholders who have suffered loss."
Sign the Petition
01/09/2009 - Vanni's history
Quietly, over the August Bank Holiday weekend, a chapter in the sad recent history of Equitable Life ended with the departure of chairman Vanni Treves and his acolyte chief executive, Charles Thomson.
The full extent of Mr Treves' stitch-ups are too numerous to list but amongst the most regrettable were his U-turns both on cuts to with-profits annuitants after the compromise in 2002 and his pledge to sue the government if Lord Penrose provided evidence of maladministration. There were four wasted years and a staggering £50m legal fees for humiliatingly failing to obtain compensation from Ernst & Young and 17 former directors. To late-joiners and with-profits annuitants he asserted that there was absolutely no merit in pursuing claims of mis-selling against the Society - followed by near full settlements with the few hundreds who went to law, leaving tens of thousands swinging in the wind. His actions had the unfortunate effect of effectively protecting the Labour government's backside for many years. Only after the publication of the PO's report did his views appear to finally diverge from the Labour party and he became increasingly critical of government in 2009.
Throughout his 100-month tenure as chairman of Equitable Life he was unswervingly hostile to EMAG, rejecting our several olive branches and refusing to back us in Europe or on our recent JR.
The new regime starts on 2 Sept. EMAG has suggested an informal meeting with the new chairman and chief executive and we are very pleased to report that this has been accepted. Hopefully, a more constructive chapter is beginning...
10/08/2009 - Parliamentary group has 146 members
MPs continue to sign up to the all-party group for Justice for Equitable Life policyholders, even during their 12 week break from Westminster. Do you realise that Parliament only sits for 20 weeks of the year? When it returns on 12th October, perhaps we can now hope to see MPs rise up and demand a debate on Equitable Life in the House of Commons. 335 MPs having signed EDM 1423 certainly warrants it. Has your MP joined the all-party group for justice yet?
03/08/2009 - "The Chadwick Process"
EMAG's board decided that, as we seek to have the process set aside, it was inappropriate to be seen to participate in his highly dubious process. It has been confirmed to EMAG that ELMHG, ELPHAG and the PO also refused to participate. Which means that the consultantion that ended on 17 July is very far from representative. Read chairman John Newman's letter explaining EMAG's position.
Meanwhile, the Treasury itself DID make a submission. A bit odd in itself, as the Treasury wrote Sir John's remit and is his paymaster. It was revealed in Court in the middle of the last afternoon in Court 1, in a truly Perry Mason type flourish – the surprise witness! But reading it subsequently only compounded confusion. What do you make of it? Read it here.
03/08/2009 - All change at the top
On 24 July a new appointment of chief executive at Equitable was announced. Charles Wiscaron, replacing Charles Thomson, joins on 2 September, from Lloyds, where he was Group Integration Director. Simultaneously, Ian Brimecome, who has been an Equitable Life non-exec since January 2007 takes over from Vanni Treves as the Society's chairman. So, it's a new top team from September. Read more....
03/08/2009 - Guardian's eye view
The long-time interested Guardian journalist, Rupert Jones, attended the first morning of the JR in Court. Hilariously, at one point he dropped his pen, which rolled far away – an embarrassment for a journalist trying to take fastidious notes! Read his writeup which appeared 22 July.
09/07/2009 - The FSA's annual meeting – 23 July
This year's annual meeting, which EMAG has attended to ask awkward questions for the last nine years, will be at 9.00am Thursday 23 July at The Brewery London EC1. Anyone can attend. Astonishing that the new White Paper of 8 July proposes the FSA should become a consumers' watchdog. Since it is entirely funded by the industry and the board is drawn from the industry, that seems a daft idea. Since 2001, the FSA has been accountable only to the Treasury and Gordon Brown's toady John McFall's TreasCom. The Tripate process of regulation, invented by Gordon Brown in 1997, doesn't work. Download the form to lodge a question, which must be answered in writing.
09/07/2009 - Another Westminster Hall debate
In quick succession after David Davis's one on 19 May, Labour backbencher Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North) sponsored another well attended Westminster Hall Adjournment Debate on 24 June. This was the fourth in just seven months. In particular, Susan Kramer (Lib Dem) spoke eloquently but Fabian Hamilton was the star performer. He ended his speech by posing to the new minister, Sarah McCarthy-Fry four simple questions - which remained unanswered:
"To conclude, I ask the Minister these questions: Will she amend Sir John Chadwick's terms of reference to include all the recommendations of the parliamentary ombudsman's report, 'Equitable Life: a decade of regulatory failure'? Will she agree to implement the proposal put by EMAG that Parliament sets a total amount of compensation for individual policyholders affected by the collapse of Equitable Life, and then allows the proposed tribunal to get on with the job of distributing the money quickly and fairly? Will she accept that the delay caused so far has meant that many
policyholders, who suffered through no fault of their own, have either endured financial hardship or have died in the meantime? I believe that up to 15 people die each day.
Finally, does the Minister accept that the phrase 'injustice unremedied' has real meaning to many people and that it is about time that hundreds of thousands of investors received real justice? If she were able to answer those questions positively, I believe that this injustice could be brought to an end rapidly and that the Government would receive credit for their resolution. If not, I fear that resentment and bitterness will continue, at huge cost to the individuals who have suffered and to the country as a whole."
Read Hansard for the whole debate.
09/07/2009 - Walter Merricks to depart the FOS
The so-called 'independent' FOS is about to be scrutined, finally, by the National Audit Office. The partnership at its top of Sir Christopher Kelly and Chief Ombudsman Walter Merricks - no friend of Equitable sufferers (see Lord Hunt) - has come to an end. Merricks has seen the slipery slope and has announced his imminent departure to chair the office of the Health Professions Adjudicator. Good riddance. Read the www.moneymarketing.co.uk article.
09/07/2009 - Vanni Treves new career: As an MP?
Vanni Treves, who is to depart from chair of Equitable after 101 long months this August (followed shortly by Charles Thomson) announced that he is now so "incandescent" that he is "considering" standing as an indepependent candidate in the general election. You'd think that the Society's expensive lobbyists, Finsbury, could be doing something rather more productive for the Society's members. Read The Daily Telegraph article.
09/07/2009 - Chadwick should resign?
Daniel Kawczynski MP, chair of the all-party group, was so incensense at Sir John's refusal to appear before his committee that he tabled a personal EDM 1693, calling for Chadwick to resign. This was reported in the Daily Mail.
09/07/2009 - Representations to Sir John?
Five months after his 15 January appointment Sir John finally made an announcement. He has invited interested parties to write submissions to him within one month, by July 17. He now has a website which provides Sir John's first update.
The website makes clear that, despite claiming to be 'independent' Sir John may only advise the Treasury on those few strands of the PO's report that it has accepted and on questions that it has set (eg: define 'disproportionately affected'). Whilst Sir John has stated he will not be looking at 'means testing', that does not rule it out, since it is the current intention that the Treasury itself will devise a limited ex-gratia charitable scheme. Not surprisingly, EMAG is profoundly sceptical about the 'Chadwick Process', as we are curently spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of members contributions seeking to have the Government's response quashed and the 'Chadwick Process' set aside. Reader's choice as to whether to participate. Chances are, you'll get a bog-standard response from the Treasury's seconded aparatchik, Simon Bor, who is styled 'Personal Secretary to Sir John Chadwick'!
09/07/2009 - Sir John Chadwick's recruitment
EMAG has, for months, been being given the run-around by a cynical and obstructive Treasury - blocking us at every turn. Finally, we have revealed something of minor interest. Sir John Chadwick was first approached to be the Treasury's advisor in the fortnight after 18 November 2008, coincidental with him having chosen early retirement from the Court of Appeal, at the age of 67.
09/07/2009 - E & Y: Guilty, guilty, very very guilty!
After an extensive 'in camera' enquiry the Joint Discilinary Scheme (JDS) found against Equitable's accountants Ernst & Young for failing to qualify Equitable's accounts for many years during the 1990s. But on 23 December, 2008 E & Y's lawyers succeeded in being granted an injunction to prevent the report either being passed to the FSA or the findings of the report being published, since a judicial review was to be sought and an Appeal was to be lodged. Finally, on 19 June, 2009 Gross J (the same High Court Judge who will hear EMAG's JR) agreed with Private Eye's lawyer's that the gagging injunction was against the public interest and he removed it. Whereupon the JR, which was due to be heard on 22 June, was dropped. However, the JDS's findings still cannot be published until after the Appeal in October. Although the possible outcome is a fine of hundreds of millions of pounds, normally such fines would accrue to the profession. You couldn't make it up. Read Private Eye's fascinating account. See Accountancy Age.
15/06/2009 - Treasury's Jack and Jill guide
The Treasury has an idiots guide to the current Equitable Life response. Read and laugh out loud.
15/06/2009 - Seems like old times
Although Ian Pearson MP survived last week's reshuffle as Economic Secretary to the Treasury, EMAG has now learned that ministerial responsibility for the Equitable life scandal has fallen back into the lap of Kitty Ussher. She was responsible for a 15 month period of total inaction up to October 2008. Don't hold your breath but good riddance to Ian Pearson, who was simply dreadful.
16/05/2009 - Progress on EMAG's JR
Thanks to EMAG members' contributions to a legal fighting fund, EMAG was able to lodge a Claim at the High Court on the last day possible, to seek to quash the Government's response to the PO's Report. The Treasury Solicitor responded predictably on 30th April with two dozen pages on why the High Court should dismiss the Claim out of hand. A Judge will decide by 22nd May whether the JR is permitted to proceed. EMAG has requested the case be expedited, given the years of delay and the rate at which prospective recipients of compensation are dying.16/05/2009 - Equitable's AGM 11th May
EMAG's John Newman and Paul Braithwaite attended and asked questions, along with about 100 Equitable members. Vanni suggested Ann Abraham should consider resigning in protest at the Government. Wouldn’t Gordon Brown just love that! Vanni spoke against the board contributing to EMAG's JR costs, saying "It would not be an appropriate use of members funds." But, as usual, wasting tens of thousands on staging a wildly over-engineered AGM is OK.
Vanni Treves also announced that both he and Charles Thomson would leave Equitable in the autumn – job done (or so they claim). Ian Brimecome, a non-executive director who joined the board in January 2007, will take over as chairman. A new chief executive will be recruited, hopefully NOT to be paid a stupendous £1m pa for lacklustre performance, as Thomson has been for the last five years.. Yet again the Society's expensive PR retainers, Finsbury PR, succeeded in placing a story in The Times that, surely, Vanni Treves must now be rewarded with exit honours?
www.business.timesonline.co.uk 'movers and shakers' article - 12th May
17/04/2009 - Regional progress
Both the meetings in both Redditch and Ipswich at the beginning of April were terrific successes, attracting 200 policyholders. A new group is just being formed in the East Midlands and it is hoped to get MP Tony Wright, chairman of the PASC select committee, along to a meeting soon. See: www.wolverhampton.emagregional.org.uk/
17/04/2009 - EMAG to meet with German group
EMAG has agreed to meet the representative of German policyholders DAGEV on 23rd April to discuss possible routes to the European Court of Justice and how German members can support the JR.17/04/2009 - The Equitable Life's AGM
The Equitable's AGM will be held on 11th May at 11am at the Holiday Inn near Great Portland St, London. Without the with profits annuitants (now with the Prudential), one wonders who will turn up for Charles Thomson's ninth and last appearance as chief executive.
EMAG's John Newman and Paul Braithwaite will attend. If you wish to nominate Paul Braithwaite as your proxy, email: paulbraithwaite@gmail.com10/02/2009 - EMAG challenges Sir John Chadwick's appointment
EMAG raised with its solicitors, Bindmans LLP, whether Sir John’s appointment could be challenged. Read the substantial opinion that it is highly questionable.
A copy, with accompanying letter from EMAG’s chairman John Newman, was hand delivered on the morning of 9th February to the Lord Chancellor, the Treasury and chairs of PASC and the Justice Committee. Read the letter to Ian Pearson.
Read EMAG's press release.
See press coverage on 10th February.
10/02/2009 - EMAG sought clarification from Treasury
A careful analysis of the Command Paper 7538 reveals that the majority of the PO's findings of the Maladministration and Injustice were dismissed by the Treasury "having taken advice". But that is as far as it goes. EMAG's solicitors, Bindmans, wrote promptly to the Treasury on 23rd January asking a number of detailed questions for clarification before EMASG's board can decide how to proceed. Despite having received written confirmation from th Treasury that answers would be provided within the 14-day period specified, the it has failed to provide a substantive response, as of 10th February.
