Est.2007

Barbados Underground

Bringing News and Opinions to the People

Banner promoting anonymous crime reporting with a phone and contact number 1 800 TIPS (8477), featuring the Crime Stoppers logo and a QR code for submitting tips.

CLICO And British American Policyholders Organize, Finally!

← Back

Your message to the BLOGMASTER was sent

CONTACT THE BLOGMASTER ONLY

Attorney Tariq Khan fielding questions from Policyholders & Investors at St Gabriel's – Photo credit: Bajan Reporter

The correct name for this Alliance is BIPA not BIPHA as put forward in the Video (BAICO is pronounced the same as the Ice Cream acronym, BICO but it is in fact – British American, a CL Financial subsidiary) – last time this Pressure Movement met at Divi Southwinds they were only a 100 strong – this following time, when they convened at St Gabriel’s Primary School there were at least 300 strong and they plan to reach at least 500 by July when they plan to not only take Legal Recourse via group-selected Attorney Tariq Khan, they also plan to bear down on the current Finance Ministry to ensure their original investments with CLICO do not disappear like a snow cone on an asphalt road in the noonday sun.

Full Article at Bajan Reporter

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

70 responses to “CLICO And British American Policyholders Organize, Finally!”

  1. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    @ 6.43 of the video, Chris “Errant School Teacher” Mchale quotes a QC and past president of the Bar Association as saying that in Barbados the Judicial system is “hopeless, it doesn’t work”

    Miss Myrie right to go public …!

    But look how David send me over to Fat Ars’s web site ( I feel like I just get trick ..)

  2. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    “Tariq Khan says research has to be done to see and then decide how culpable either the SUPERVISOR OF INSURANCE or the FINANCE MINISTER(my emphasis) are in this whole financial disaster……”

    As I have said before they can not be let off the hook, they failed to do their jobs properly and must be held accountable.

  3. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    Also they need to question the role of the company’s Auditors who ever they were.

  4. Ian Bourne Avatar
    Ian Bourne

    @BAFBFP – I can lose weight, if I chose and my size is just fine as it is since it does not stop my gathering info, but you are and always will remain… You, wow – now that’s a real pity!

    @David – Thanks for “Perestroika;” I have linked to more than one item of yours recently where appropriate. Maturity is deciding to stay where one is or to evolve and give respect of difference a chance, thanks!

  5. Ping Pong Avatar
    Ping Pong

    I voting DLP next time. The income tax department going after professionals who didn’t file income tax returns. One prospective DLP candidate who also happens to be a lawyer has been summoned to appear in court. See:

    http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/26-on-tax-charges/

  6. John Avatar
    John

    A foolish question but if the courts are broken why seek their help?

  7. David Avatar
    David

    List the alternative options John.

  8. John Avatar
    John

    What are the Trinis doing?

    Don’t they have a some sort of one man commission of inquiry?

    … and isn’t the man a foreigner?

    The foreigner appointed had links to CLICO.

    The Trinis got rid of him quick.

  9. John Avatar
    John

    … sorry, the first foreigner appointed had links to CLICO

  10. John Avatar
    John

    Isn’t Trinidad the source of the Cancer?

    Maybe we should be taking a leaf out of their book, …. although it pains me to say this.

    A foreigner with no links to CLICO is probably the most sensible way to proceed.

    CLICO and politicians are too inextricably interwoven for anything to work which seeks to bring those culpable to justice.

  11. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    @Ping pong.

    Any amount owed by those is paltry in comparison to corporate tax /vat owed. They should have started there. They only going after the small fries.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    The problem is that many of these companies don’t have the cashflow to meet their obligations. You pressure them and they have to close and of course you have the attendant issues.

  13. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    Which then bring the question. How many of our companies operate like this? Are the same companies that keep adding the debt over and over or is it a multitude of new companies ? If it is multitude of new companies then how can we say that we have a good business operating area if we can’t get the companies to pay the government owed tax.

  14. John Avatar
    John

    Some of the companies are big time guilty though and it doesn’t take much common sense to figure out which.

    It is the links that make common sense flee supposedly rational men and women.

    Same issue with CLICO.

  15. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    Ping Pong

    Some well known names are in the list.

  16. charles alleyne Avatar
    charles alleyne

    Who was the audit firm that was doing the audit?
    Were the audit done on an annual basis?
    Did the audit firm rotate the persons who were assigned to do the audit over the period of time?
    I must say that
    this particular audit firm needs to be call into question so please remember what happen to Enron and it managers.

  17. David Avatar
    David

    Unless changed in recent times the auditors have been the embattled PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

  18. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    @ David

    Good ol’ Fat Arse just throw an insult at me … I love a good spat but this is your blog … Come on man help me to help myself … I need for you to say ignore Fat Arse and move on … ’cause right now I salivating …!

  19. David Avatar
    David

    @BAFBFP

    Individuals are responsible for their behaviour which should be a measure of a personal value system.

  20. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    Man David

    my value system gun change depending on the situation and the individual that I dealing with… Man don’ lef it up to me … Tell muh shut ma mout’ … Can’ be dah difficult..!

  21. John Avatar
    John

    Who were the auditors for Trade Confirmers, Plantations, Cotton Factory ….

  22. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    OF INTEREST

    The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has said that the concerned partner who signed on Satyam Computers’ balance sheet will be held responsible and not the audit firm Price Waterhouse.

    “We can initiate action against the partners, if they are found guilty of audit failure but not against the firm,” ICAI vice-president Uttam Prakash Agarwal told ET.

    ICAI, an apex body for accountants and a quasi-judicial body, has already issued a notice to Price Waterhouse, seeking information on the partners and also copies of the accounts of Satyam that were audited by the firm, Mr Agarwal said. Price Waterhouse will be given a maximum of 30 days to respond to the notice. The disciplinary committee of the council will proceed on the matter if the firm doesn’t respond by then.

    The brazen falsification of accounts at India’s fourth largest IT company, Satyam, and the alleged failure by its statutory audit firm Price Waterhouse to detect the cover-ups has prompted both the ministry of company affairs and ICAI to take stringent steps.

    Reportedly, Price Waterhouse partner Srinivas Talluri had signed on Satyam’s balance sheet. Another partner S Gopalakrishnan had signed on the company’s 2006-07 balance sheet, a period that is also being looked into under the investigations.”

  23. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    http://taxguru.in/chartered-accountant/action-against-partners-not-audit-firm-says-icai.html

  24. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    Interesting reading:_

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyam_scandal

    The Barbados Labour Party Government knew from 2002 that all was not right with Clico but did nothing about it.

    Contrast that with the Government of India who moved speedily to correct an untenable situation at Satyam company.
    Former Barbados Labour Party Ministers must also be dragged across the coals for dereliction of duty. Had they move swiftly and decisively none of this would have happen. They were being paid to do a job which they refused to do.

  25. John Avatar
    John

    Carson, they are all in it!!

  26. John Avatar
    John

    …. including your lot.

  27. BAJAN TRUTH Avatar
    BAJAN TRUTH

    Bout time those people find some backbone and speak out. This is unconscionable. This gov’t has stood by , failed to act and was complicit in facilitating this rape of CLICO. REFUSED, REFUSED to protect policyholders; refused to take charge of Cluco to prevent further infelicuities and now failing to bring action against the dirctors for flagrant disregard of the regulations. At the centre of that sad, sorry cannot meet the test of good corporate governance is David Thompson and DLP. Mr. Thompson facilitated the access to a guarantee of 10m of policyholders money for a performance in the future. How many millions of Clico policyholders dollars was pumped into the DLP political campaigns. Heads want bashing.

  28. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Sandridge ltd. buying CLICO International General Insurance Limited.
    Interesting times ahead.

  29. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    With this sale to Sandridge is there hope for Clico shareholders?

  30. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    There would be some hope. The net of the sale would go toward paying off the annuities. How much did they get clico for is the big question.

  31. David Avatar
    David

    Sandridge is owned by Bernie Weatherhead.

  32. Ping Pong Avatar
    Ping Pong

    It is interesting that CLICO (Trinidad) owns about 15.3 million shares (the single largest shareholder) of ONE C’Bean Media, the owners of the Nation newspaper and Starcom.

  33. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    Merely property and car insurance that are renewed annually.

  34. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    DAVID
    anthony
    TRUTHMAN BURTON
    PROGIGAL SON
    ISLANDGAL246
    FRAN
    ruth arnetta

    It that egg I see on your faces?

  35. John Avatar
    John

    I thought this article by Pat Hoyos was worth a read.

    http://www.nationnews.com/index.php/articles/view/bipa-has-work-cut-out-for-them-on-clico-issue/

    By Pat Hoyos | Sun, April 03, 2011 – 12:01 AM
    Finally, the Barbados victims of Clico International Life (CIL) and British American Insurance Company (BAICO) are coming together to make their stand, forming a lobby group to press their cause as investors in the two former giants of insurance which have ended up on the scrap heap of business failure, mainly due to abysmal management.

    I salute your coming together to form a non-profit organization to be called Barbados Investors And Policyholders Alliance (BIPA). But you are so middle-class, it hurts! Imagine that you have to apply to the same Government which has postponed, put off, avoided and watered down taking any action at all on these shining examples of corporate empire-building without a care for the long-term sustainability of their policies.

    Of course, the Government will let you form up, and then it will do everything in its power to ignore you.

    Simply put, until people start chaining themselves to the gates of the Public Buildings or undertaking similar acts of civil disobedience, which I do not for one moment recommend, I doubt much is going to happen for you.

    Before you came on the scene to press your members’ case, dear BIPA, the Government had been given some options by the Oversight Committee on how to deal with your members. I have mentioned them before but feel it is worthwhile to mention them again, so here goes:

    I do not have any figures to hand for BAICO, so its liabilities would have to be added to the Clico ones noted below.

    After leaving within CIL enough assets to cover its $303 million “traditional” life insurance portfolio, only $261 million, in mainly real estate assets, is available to service the $1/2 billion Executive Flexible Premium Annuities (EFPA) debt. The total EFPA debt therefore cannot be serviced from these assets, even if all were to be sold off at full market price.

    That is why the Oversight Committee chairman has recommended to assist just those individual investors, who were described as “small and unsophisticated”. There are $308 million worth of EFPAs held by them, people just like you hard-working folks who got together last week to start BIPA.

    The advice to the Cabinet was that the Barbados Government issue $44 million in bonds of up to $25 000 for each small investor, payable at an interest rate of two per cent per year for five years. However, “individuals who need cash immediately would be able to sell the bonds”, states the report.

    That is basically it, because any sums over $25 000 invested in Clico International Life’s EFPAs, would not earn any interest at all, and you would get back your principal sometime between 2015 and 2025, assuming the sale of CIL’s assets go through.

    In other words, there are no Suzuki vans driving around doling out cash refunds to EFPA certificate holders like they do hot meals on busy weekdays up and down this fair country of ours.

    I am sorry to be so blunt, but the situation should not be seen through rose-coloured glasses. It is pretty dire, for by the time you or your inheritors actually get back any of the principal, inflation would have eaten up a good portion of it and there would have been no interest added to offset those cumulative gouges.

    This is the bitter cup the investors in EFPAs are being asked to drink as the Government tries to salvage what it can of life savings destroyed by the policies (and politics) of unsustainable interest rates and insatiable lust for cold, hard cash, allowed for so many years to be practised by the management of Clico International Ltd.

    If the Barbados Government decided to take on the entire EFPA amount due ($507 million), the individual investors would still get their initial $25 000 bond as above, while another $167 million would have to be issued in Government bonds, along with the above-noted sale of CIL assets.

    That would make the process of repayment even longer and therefore even more vulnerable to inflation, but it would at least be fairer, as it would not discriminate against policyholders on the basis of who should have known better.

  36. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    CIL is who owes people their annuities via efpa . CIG is the part that was bought by the Sandridge Limited

  37. Fran Avatar
    Fran

    interesting revelation that CLICO (TRINIDAD) is the largest shareholder of One Caribbean Media, which owns the nation newspaper and starcom. We can now understand the lack of news coming forth from these two.

    H…MMM

  38. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    Lack of news ? I would say the advocate / cbc been devoid of news more than nation and starcom.

  39. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    With no judicial manager in place at CLICO as yet, as soon as Terrence Thornhill gets this money from Bernie Weatherhead, it will all be gone or hidden somewhere for Leroy Parris and Lawrence Duprey to get their hands on it ultimately.

    Mark my words, the policy holders will not see a red cent from this sale. Remember there is no Oversight Committee in place or a judicial manager. There will not be a cent of it available as dont forget the hearing hs been put back to May, 2011.

    Remember CLICO is a corrupt smart arse operation!!!

  40. Josquin Desprez Avatar
    Josquin Desprez

    @ Prodigal Son

    How dare you mention the word “corrupt” to describe the operations of CLICO? When did Leroy Parris and his gang join the BLP? According to Carson the only corrupt people in Barbados are members and supporters of the BLP, and his DLP are saints, can do no wrong.

    Wait a minute, is not tax evasion against the law in Barbados? Did I not see the name Verla DePeiza included in the list of 26 persons charged for non-filing of income tax? Is she a BLP too?

    Carson, where are you?

  41. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    We can laugh loudly, Josquin. Carson lives in La La Land.
    I wonder too why they did not suppress that info on Verla.

  42. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    Maybe the jamaican issue had them side tracked ?

  43. Ian Bourne Avatar
    Ian Bourne

    It is very true that any CLICO doings, whether right or wrong, commenced way before 2008’s mandate to Barbados for a new regime under David Thompson…

    As for the Media’s seeming reluctance? Let us put it ALL in proper perspective! Free Press, here and my own site are truly independent entities with our own mores and aegises (?).

    Nation & Starcom as satellites of OCM and where that trail leads is as stated before; Barbados Advocate is equally at home with Hounds, Medes, Hares & Persians so long as one is in charge, then there lie them… CBC (whose News Editor has no love lost for Owen Arthur) must adhere to the diktat of every version of Bajan Government – the current incarnation like the previous Caliph are both friends and clients to Le Roi de Paris, if you catch my drift – is it any wonder the coverage based on these premises falls accordingly?

  44. islandgal246 Avatar
    islandgal246

    Carson I am present please! What yuh calling muh name fuh?

  45. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    iaslandgal246

    I just wanted to know if you were around. that is all.

  46. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    The BLP people already starting to sing a different song.

    You guys are so amazing. That is why it is going to be so easy to defeat you at the next general elections. You people live in clueless Land.

    Owen”seethru”Arthur will be given his hat-trick of defeats at the hands of the Democratic Labour Party and there is nothing PRODIGAL SON, TRUTHMAN, JOSQUIN and other like minded can do about. You will just have to sit and weep for a third time.

    The Barbados Labour Party members and supporters will be paying for their sins.

  47. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    Is there still such a thing called a Supervisor of Insurance? Is he still paid with tax payers money? Is he new to the post because his predecessor was asked to vacate?

  48. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    There is no SOI currently, there is however a female acting SOI.

  49. iWatchya Avatar
    iWatchya

    Is it true that the Supervisor of Insurance no longer exists and that such insurance regulation will be handled by the Financial Services Commission?

    Is Leroy Parris using his company to file suite against CLICO for a FURTHER 12 million?

  50. Carson C. Cadogan Avatar
    Carson C. Cadogan

    British American policyholders could see some repayment soon

    “Former British American policyholders could be repaid some of the money they invested in the bankrupt Caribbean insurance company within the next five months.

    Yesterday, a spokesman for the Registrar of Companies announced the official receivers, KPMG, would be able to make repayments to the former clients of British American this summer if policyholders agree on the format they have drafted.

    Details on how the $11.5 million in cash assets in Bermuda would be split between more than 5,000 policyholders were not provided.

    The news received mixed reviews from some of the former policyholders. ”

    http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20110404/NEWS/704049983

The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.

Trending

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading