Realistically, what are the options?

It is still my contention that the Government and its agent, the Supervisor of Insurance, are guilty of at least gross negligence in the handling of CLICO prior to it s failure. The Supervisor knew ought to have known that CLICO was heading for trouble and should have taken steps to protect the unsuspecting public. The Supervisor had a statutory duty to intervene and if he had done so, policyholders would have been aware that CLICO was not a safe place to do business.

Persons who did business with the insurance arm of CLICO and suffered a loss after the Supervisor neglected to do his duty should be compensated by Government. Further, after the Supervisor failed to do his duty resulting in losses to policyholders; the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance gave assurances that the company was safe which lead to even further losses. It can be argued that as a result that Government was guilty of negligence and or fraud against the policyholders and should make good the losses to them.

Also, when the fecal matter hit the fan, rather than comply with the law Government’s hands were too dirty to show them in public so they set up an oversight committee,headed by a blithering idiot, that gave people time to further loot the company. Now after the looting they took the fist step last and went to court to place the company in judicial management.

Ask yourselves if the company was placed in judicial management at the first opportunity would the policyholders and investors be better off. If I were foolish enough enough to invest money in a company that was controlled by Leroy Parris, I would hae sued the Government long ago.

Congratulations to the idiot Judicial Managers who, after 2 years of flying kites up and down the Caribbean, have finally managed to achieve the worst possible outcome for all those affected. You were certainly worth the tens of millions of dollars you have sucked from the company.

There are 35,000 quite vocal Clico investors out there who seem to think Government should make up the difference between what is left in CLICO’s coffers after the company (1) was spectacularly badly run (2) made some seriously bad investments and (3) was milked dry of all its cash by its parent company.
As a tax payer and non-CLICO investor, I commiserate with those who put money into CLICO. I do not think, though, that it should be taken for granted that the role of Government is to make up for losses sustained by private individuals when investing in private companies.
Some countries do have guarantee schemes for banks etc. Barbados has no such scheme.
As a non-CLICO investor and taxpayer, if the choice is for Government to use my tax money to bail out the losses made by CLICO investors, or to build a new hospital, I am afraid I reluctantly vote for the hospital.
While I do not support Government picking up the bill, can I suggest another route? Prove that Government or its agent was negligent.
Surely the way forward is for the CLICO investors to put pressure on the Judicial Manager to take action against the Supervisor of Insurance? If the contention is that he failed in his duty, then prove it in Court. If you can, then even people like me will accept that Government should pay.

Wunna realy think that Accountants are looking for the trut?????
Now dat is mocksport! You pay the fat fees and you gets what you wants!

Interesting that Terence Thornhill remains a player.

C’est quoi ce bordel, cette folie est soufflé

How come the Auditor firm which did CLICO’s audits every year keep escaping scrutiny?

“It can be argued that as a result that Government was guilty of negligence and or fraud against the policyholders and should make good the losses to them.”

br cas, i had two policies both of which recently matured and as a poor man this has obviously put me back tremendously, but i cannot in good conscience expect the taxpayers to refund me for my losses. now, if there was a system in place that those persons found sleeping on the job were made to contribute to the losses of the policy holders out of their personal assets, then i could accept that line of argument. now, after all the hullaballoo, it is clear that mr parris would never have to answer for his role in the matter and by extension his legal advisor who despite his now more than obvious complicity in the matter continues to be accorded hero status even by mr stuart who seems to forget that the worst tonguelashing Mr Thompson received in his life in politics came not from the BLP but from Mr Stuart himself.

@Inkwell

Noted.

Yesterday the PM promised policyholders they will get back at least the principal amount of their investment. The only “haircut” investors will be asked to take according to Freundel Stuart the Barber is the interest component of their investments.

Now who is dealing with reality here? The JM’s or the PM?

The PM has committed his government again to policyholders. Is he going to follow through by announcing this solution in Parliament as he has done before or is this just another electioneering ploy to pull further wool over the policyholders’ eyes?

It’s interesting to note that the PM also said that his administration was never for the JM route but preferred the Oversight Committee model of resolving the CLICO problem.
What really is going on in this man’s mind?

David | October 28, 2012 at 8:58 AM |
“The result will be that policyholders will be lucky to see as much as 50 cents on the dollar. ”

Is the PM remark made yesterday a statement of confirmation of the above proposal or is it an alternative political solution? If it is an alternative political solution that is guaranteeing policy holders a return of the ‘principal’ component of their investments is the PM referring to EFPA’s only or is he including those holding annuities for life insurance and pension contracts?
This is where the confusion lies. Can you shed any light here, David?

@ David | October 28, 2012 at 9:24 AM |

Are you implying that the guarantee given to policy holders by the PM (return of 100% principal) is just a vote catching exercise since the national economy cannot afford such light trimming instead of a real haircut?

In other words, the PM’s promise of 100 % principal is just another serving of political sugarcoating in hogwash economic terms. The country- given the current gloomy and expected further deterioration of economic landscape- just can’t afford this 100% principal nonsense promised in electioneering cast iron.

@ Carson C. Cadogan | October 27, 2012 at 9:52 PM |

We the members of the BU household would like to hear from you regarding the PM”s recent promise of guaranteeing the return of principal to CLICO investors.

Are you backing the PM on this one or are you still adamant the CLICO investors (like Barrack) will get back or be paid NOT One ‘Red’ Cent under a DLP administration.
If you are so relentless in your stance then which is backed by your party’s position are you then calling your leader a deceitful liar?
Do you believe that the PM is being disingenuous just to cool the tempers of the CLICO lobby group before the bell is announced next month? After all a promise is a comfort to fool and which greater fool there is in the eyes of politicians than the electorate.

Why is Terence Thorhill still Chairman of EGFL? Or are we mistaken? Many of the Directors of CLICO companies in Barbados claimed they were not aware of what Parris was doing – Tony Marshall, Leslie Haynes and the lot. We don’t have the board minutes to disprove neither has the government or judicial manager also BIPA tried to prove director liability. No one can say that Terence Thornhill was not aware of what Paris was doing. He signed the damn cheques!

As St. George Dragon said, there is no compelling reason to use my tax dollars to bailout a private company.

Or words to that effect.

The following story is of interest it what many described as the biggest Ponzi to hit this part of the world:

CLICO FUNDS IN DUPREY’S HANDS

By ANDRE BAGOO Sunday, October 28 2012
click on pic to zoom in

FORMER CL Financial (CLF) executive chairman Lawrence Duprey failed to disclose to the Clico board a power of attorney he reportedly used to divert Clico dividend income – potentially worth hundreds of millions – away from Clico, according to the findings of a Sunday Newsday investigation.

The power of attorney, dated April 23, 2005, gave Duprey – as well as former Clico director Andre Monteil – power to receive “all money owing to the company and to receive dividends or other distribution to the company” and to invest “any of the company’s money in such investments as they consider appropriate”.

http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,168408.html

All CLICO policyholders under the age of 16 should be reimbursed every single cent that they have in that Ponzi scheme.
Bushie would strongly support any efforts made by government to protect the rights and monies of any children who unwisely invested in Paris’s scam.
When it comes to ADULTS taking conscious decisions to go after attractive dividends and engage in risky behaviors however – it escapes a simple bushman how it can become government’s (read that as Bushie’s taxes) liability.

To be honest, if Bushie had invested significant funds in CLICO without a through check of that organization’s history and particularly its leadership, OR if, despite the findings of such a check, the bushman had gone ahead and invested…..Bushie would be hard pressed to run around blaming the government/JM/court for not ‘looking after’ Bushie’s funds.

Adults are expected to make responsible decisions and to stand by the consequences of their actions.
What government needs to do is to enforce the laws and prosecute those guilty of criminal behavior. Policy holders should seek to take control of the company and then decide on their best actions….either sell the assets and recover funds or establish a viable new operation.
…waiting around for some (crooked) government official to come and save these big able adults from their errors in judgement is pathetic….

@Hants A good place to start is the directors he has around him and his executive officers – Tony Marshall, Leslie Haynes, Woodbine Davis, Terence Thornhill, Jepter Ince, Geoffrey Brewster etc.

@Caswell

How would the SOI have known the financial health of CLICO? Have we not acknowledge on BU that his Office was undermanned and he would have used the audited financials to determine financial health? Did any of those financials carry and audit exception/notes?

Caswell, is your address Nairi Fairi land…? Are you serious?
…a man like you who have been around politicians for so many years and you talking about relying on civil servants?

what statutory duty what?!
The SOI was a ‘chicken feed maker’ put into that position by your then party precisely because he had not a clue.
Even if he had, Bushie is saying that anyone depositing significant amounts of their savings with an Insurance Company with a relatively limited track record OWED IT TO THEMSELVES to ask some questions and get some answers.

Bushie only had to see LP on TV ONCE to avoid CLICO like the plague.
LOL ..how much they take you for Caswell…?

One would have thought that the Judicial Managers would have followed the money trail and would have asked the courts to put the sale on any CLICO properties on hold, out of the reach away from the present team at CLICO. But no, Mr Jordan has said that he has no control over CLICO Holdings. What the hell am I hearing? All these properties were bought out of CLICO Life’s policyholders monies.

The only sensible settlement I think would be for the court to allow the JM’s to hold all of CLICO’s assets, sell them for whatever you can get for them and share the monies out to the policyholders. Some company would be glad to purchase the life insurance business without the incumbrances. Every asset of the dead king and Leroy Parris should be seized as well. As someone said above, there is no way that Leroy Parris could have run the CLICO ponzi scheme on his own, he is not that bright.

Is it Terrance Thornhill who is leaking the Enterprise Growth Fund’s business on this blog out of spite? This is so unethical. By the way, these grants people are taking about are really loans that have to be repaid as far as I understand.

@Prodigal Son

All of EGFL clients are listed in the financials.

There should be no confusion about the role of the Supervisor of Insurance. This not a person who we can let off the hook if he is not up to the task. The Supervisor is a Government appointed animal whose job is to regulate the conduct of insurance companies under the Insurance Act.
If the SOI is negligent, Government has been negligent and may be liable to anyone to whom it owes a duty of care.
Members of BIPA must take this whichever way they want as my position is that Government should not automatically pay for their losses.
My advice is for them to establish a case against the SOI, the auditors and Directors of the company. They shouldn’t just push for Government to make up the difference in their losses; they should make the Judicial Manager do his job – which is to maximise the return for the shareholders/investors by pursuing the people responsible who didn’t do their jobs properly..

Because you can’t trust politicians?