Equitable action group rejects Chadwick review
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Equitable Life policyholder campaign group EMAG is withdrawing from working with Sir John Chadwick’s review of compensation for policyholders, labelling his work a “Treasury stitch up”.
EMAG accuses the Treasury of “orchestrating a cover up” which seeks to negate four years of work by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
It also slams the Government for choosing the actuaries Towers Watson to advise Chadwick and allowing them to select their own peer review panel to endorse their calculations.
General secretary Paul Braithwaite says: “The latest interim report from Sir John Chadwick shows that the Treasury is attempting to retry the case, using actuarial sophistry to distort the figures, instead of accepting the recommendations of compensation found by the Parliamentary Ombudsman and upheld by the High Court.
“The logical conclusion of this sham process is that the Government will deny all obligation to compensate policyholders for the damage done by serial maladministration and only paltry discretionary payments will be made on the basis of charity, not justice.”
He adds: “The consequence of a series of dubious assumptions piled one on another is leading Sir John Chadwick towards, surprise surprise, a conclusion that nothing was wrong in the 1990s after all. It would be farcical if it wasn’t so dangerous to the well-being of the victims of this scandal.”
EMAG won a High Court challenge last year, which found the Treasury’s brief to Chadwick unlawful and forced the remit to cover all investments back to 1991 rather than 1999.
Braithwaite says: “While the High Court judges were clear about the need to treat the Ombudsman’s report as a whole, the Treasury-hired actuaries are choosing only the bits they want and justice is going out of the window.
“We contributed extensively and in good faith to Sir John Chadwick but it’s apparent that he only has ears for the Treasury’s submissions. Yet again, actuaries are being used to obfuscate and deny the real losses their colleagues presided over. The sooner the general election sweeps away this mockery of a process, the better.”
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Readers' comments (5)
Paul Violet | 15 Mar 2010 4:06 pm
The despicable deceptions and refusal to accept what has already been PROVEN, is hard to begin to comprehend. Money has been made readily available to others but not to those who have sufferred as a direct result of government incompetence. I would not vote for this government if my life depended on it.
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M J Winfield | 15 Mar 2010 9:09 pm
The Government can ignore the ruling of the
Parliamentary Ombudsman, wasting a large amount of Public Money in the process.
But what of the FSA, the Tresury puppet, charged in law to protect the consumer?
Paul is right the quicker an election the better.Twenty BNP MP's should concentrate the minds of our disinfranchised current occupants
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Dale Tranter | 16 Mar 2010 10:45 am
I lost the logic at the last sentence. There are pleny of reasons for voting this govt out, but plenty more acceptable alternatives than the BNP
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John Pickles | 16 Mar 2010 12:50 pm
There seems to be no low that the present govenrment will not stoop below, to avoid paying out to the Equitable Life claimants. The company was regulated and like all insurance companies it was required to submit actuarial returns to the Government Actuary. Clearly the Actuary must have been short of toilet paper for a number of years because the returns can never have been studied properly.
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Incompetent Regulators Awards Team | 16 Mar 2010 3:21 pm
Nasty Bitchy Labour at their best again!!!
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