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CLICO: Is and Therefore

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The CLICO mess thickens
The CLICO mess thickens

In the business section of BBC of 19 June 2013 there was a headline Deloitte gets one-year New York ban.  In the world of global finance it represented a routine report given the vagaries of how business is done today.  Then it dawned on the author to question – why is it regulators in Barbados are never driven to censor the entities which they regulate? Is the corporate climate in Barbados so  principled as to avoid the censure from those with oversight?

Then there is the association to be made between Deloitte,  who is the Judicial Manager of CLICO and PriceWaterhouse (PWC), who acted before as external auditors for CLICO Barbados. Why have we not been asking robust questions of PWC?   It seems all of the focus has been directed at Leroy Parris, and yes he should be held to account given his fiduciary role. However, if we want to fully prove what led to the demise of one of the largest privately own conglomerates in the Caribbean, we need to cast the net far and wide.

Under the Companies Act of Barbados CAP.308 Section 150-167, the external auditor derives wide powers to ensure the integrity of the financials of any company regulated under the Act. The realisation that the Deloitte CLICO Forensic Report established that there is a shortfall in the assets of CLICO of about 300 million dollars places PWC under the radar. PWC must be forced to answer whether the erosion of CLICO assets occurred during the period of the Oversight Body – headed by William Layne  – and immediately thereafter  or whether financials audited by PWC without notes were inaccurate. We must ask the hard questions. After all it is the taxpayers who are being asked to bail CLICO.

In a related development: the Deloitte Judicial Manager (JM) Patrick Toppin submitted their final report last week and to the surprise of many asked the court to seal the report. BU is on record that the CLICO mess will take years to unravel, this recent development confirms it. We may speculate why the JM has request the report to be sealed. From this distance there is one person who stands to benefit if the court agrees to the request.

BIPA has explained that the group is happy with what it was told by the JM this week. A picture of BIPA members with beaming was posted in the local press to confirm, missing was the lawyers who must be a tad happier.

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94 responses to “CLICO: Is and Therefore”

  1. CHAUCER Avatar
    CHAUCER

    All roads led to Lawrence Duprey

  2. Yagga Rowe Avatar
    Yagga Rowe

    all roads
    -Dodds !

  3. Nostradamus Avatar
    Nostradamus

    @ David
    “Does any one believe Jepter Ince does not have intimate knowledge of CLICO operations?”

    Anyone know what position or positions Ince held at CLICO or CLICO Company?
    How long was he employed by CLICO? Approximate dates?

  4. David Avatar
    David

    Nostradamus

    He was responsible for setting up the under performing CLICO Balance Fund and other investment jobs. From memory he did not stck around for very long.

  5. The Dummy @ Dumo Avatar
    The Dummy @ Dumo

    David

    Marryshaw is the Chairman of Barbados Tourism Investment Inc (BTI) and former partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

    Marryshaw is also the man Sinckler has told the Cabinet, is responsible of the CLICO mess and the man Sinckler promised to fire from the BTI ‘in a most public of ways’

  6. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Carson C. Cadogan | July 4, 2013 at 6:40 AM |
    “Well as the old Bajans used to say, “better late than never”, finally Barbados Underground is putting the Audit Firm under scrutiny.
    For years I was asking here on BU why is the Audit Firm being given a free pass in this issue.”
    ‘
    You are just one blasted liar jumping on the bandwagon of deceit and cover up and driven by the demon of smoke and mirrors.

    Bring evidence of at least one post of yours in which you called for the Auditors to be sued for professional negligence.
    Do you know that if the true role of the auditors is really brought to light many politicians on both sides of the imaginary divide especially those in the DLP, both dead and alive, would run away; to use a Bob Marley analogy?

    Why do you think the JM, being a member of that same Accounting cartel of cover-up of corporate fraud in return for large fees and behaving like a shitting bald pooch cat meowing to earn its additional consultancy income is actively seeking to ensure that the most recent in-depth forensic audit is sealed in a legal sarcophagus of fraud and placed in a cryptic mausoleum with the inscription:
    ‘He who proceeds further along this audit trail leading to Duprey the Caribbean Madoff will be cursed by Ponzi the god of Fraud who is well served by the archangels of political corruption David T, Leroy Greenverbs and his black-faced capuchin friend the Fumbler and the pathological liar of a jump up gorilla called Stinky the Lying Ape.

    Who do you think had to pay for these forensic audits? The JM, the Court, the GoB, Leroy Parris? No! But the Policyholders out of the continuing payment of premiums to this dead cash cow like water down Maxwell pond or like shite down the drains leading to the sewage plant!

    Don’t you people find it passing strange that the Chief Financial Officer, the Devil’s equivalent to Pacioli, is still on the job?
    Why is Terrence Thornhill still receiving a salary and benefits way in excess of an annual six figure out of the premium income from the same policyholders?
    He is the man who did the technically required dirty work and bookkeeping cover up of the fraudulent shit made by the bald pooch cat called Leroy and his brood of toothless rats called the Board of Directors with lawless Leslie H and the unethical banker Tony the Deputy Dawg Marshall being the most poisonous.

    Again Carson’ bring your evidence and the miller will certainly prove that he was the one who first put forward this suggestion of enjoining the Auditors along with the Board of Directors in a legal battle for Justice
    Even “Observer”- the eternal apologist for the totally hamstrung DLP administration like a fly trapped in this CLICO web of lies and fraud- will agree.

  7. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    Re: millertheanunnaki | July 4, 2013 at 6:45 PM |
    Please delete the replication in the subject post.
    If it a resubmission is required please let me konw,

    Seems to have some gremlins in the works here of late!

  8. CHAUCER Avatar
    CHAUCER

    Who were the steered clients of Clico
    Who purchased $1M policies
    This is bigger than Mark Stokes……….Mr. Miller

  9. Gabriel Tackle Avatar
    Gabriel Tackle

    Was not Woodbine Davis a director of Clico?Why he is a big able attorney and a former judge of the high court ne ce pas?And woody let them fellas do that to his reputation?Is the haste to seal the f riggin’ audit partly to conceal the dead king’s emoluments/fees/payments which are in sum supposed to be over 40 million and counting?Can anyone say if this is true?Would the public be forgiving to the dead king’s family if they, the public, knew the truth,the whole truth and nothing but the truth.If only Bree were alive and holding the brief for Bipa!

  10. David Avatar
    David

    And there is Leslie Haynes QC who was no ordinary Director.

  11. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Every BU blogger should read page 64 of BarbadosToday.

  12. checkit-out Avatar
    checkit-out

    Hants;
    Yes. That story about Royal Westmoreland is indeed good news. There was also another good story (If one believes or trusts the Gov. of the Central Bank) in the paper. These along with the earlier news of Kiffin Simpson’s acquisition of Exxon, offer some rays of hope at the end of a dismal week

  13. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    Gabriel Tackle at 8:16 a.m. “Is the haste to seal the f riggin’ audit partly to conceal the dead king’s emoluments/fees/payments which are in sum supposed to be over 40 million and counting?Can anyone say if this is true?Would the public be forgiving to the dead king’s family if they, the public, knew the truth,the whole truth and nothing but the truth

    Good question.

    But hasn’t the DLP presented David Thompson’s foreign born widow to the people of Barbados as some sort of Queen? (and aren’t Queen’s by their very nature untouchable?)

  14. Nostradamus Avatar
    Nostradamus

    @DAVID
    “….and other investment jobs…..” With reference to Ince I am curious to know exactly what these “other investment jobs” were.

    @ millertheanunnaki
    I was shocked to read that Mr.Thornhill is still at CLICO. One would have thought that ALL of the top management would have been removed.

  15. islandgal246 Avatar
    islandgal246

    Hants does \Barbados Today have a page 64? If that is true please give us the link.

  16. In the lighthouse Avatar
    In the lighthouse

    Can I ask some real serious questions? Given all the morass that has happened and is continuing , from we in a ” stable “to CLICO soubriquet , Integrity Legislation, vote buyingselling,loose canon talk about cracking heads, Now more selective bitter pills for some to swallow. Where are we heading?Barbados I love you, but please you on the wrong track man.You in murky waters and heading out fast.

  17. Helicopter view Avatar
    Helicopter view

    Hants,Every BU blogger should read page 64 of BarbadosToday

    its pge 68, watch miller onions and the prodigal types dismiss the Royal Westmoreland investor’s comments as nonsense orchestrated by Sinckler and the CB governor. Where is Mottley taking her motley crew today she gathers her yardfowls in each sector rounds up her media pimps goes to a location the news that follows makes Barbados worse than Haiti. This is the woman who cant control Pain and Hinckson but is keen to lead this great nation.

  18. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    Get lost you yardfowl!

    Does Mia not have a right to perform her duty? Talk about the BLP all you want but that is not what is important. The important thing today is where you inept, incompetent people have this country…on the skids going off the cliff.

    When the dead king was Opposition leader for the second/third time, did he not walk around trashing the government of the day weekly and then finally walk out of Parliament with his troops? ……………..saying if you don’t like the way the game is going…you pull up the stumps, take up the ball and walk away….

    You suckers of the fatted calf are “priceless”………………forget the sordid past of the DLP and forget that not all Bajans have short memories!

  19. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    But wait, you Dems really praising a British investor? Did you all not pillor OSA for “selling” out our birth rights to foreigners and that there would be no land left for our children?

    Oh, you are the government and you now realise that for Barbados to succeed, you need direct foreign investments!!!!

    Helicopter view, you should also read the Governor’s comments on page 6 and the comments of the poor black people you all claim to love on page 8. Suffering in the land.

  20. David Avatar
    David

    We have come full circle on this issue of selling out Barbados.

  21. old onion bags Avatar
    old onion bags

    Man Prodi

    Doan blow ya cool nah!..leff he, leff he……you hear the name he choose Helicopter view…..he ent from bout hay….Alien. Anybody with lil common sense could see how they itchy wid the 16 – 14 arrangement they get handed….man dey can’t FART a muscle…..so dey watching WE every move….last week they were begging Miller for answers…..week bfoe Reggie Soothing on air..week bfoe that Jonesing wid helmets and bullets….Man we got dem pun needles and pins…MAM DON’T STOP!..Keep dem guessing…..like you ain’t notice the escape …..a big able green bean stalk, when the nite come reachin up in D aire…

  22. old onion bags Avatar
    old onion bags

    Heli boy,

    It only take one man to get vexx….like jonsey and stupess…he walkin d boardwalk and the whole apple cart fart in D sea…..in all honesty I can’t blame you boi….lookin and watchin everyman move….granny used to call it fart frighten….oh Loss!

  23. Gabriel Tackle Avatar
    Gabriel Tackle

    On Royal Westmoreland don’t forget Sandi and his famous prayer re that project,he said”I will lift up my eyes unto the hills”,and all that he gave away to make that project come on stream,therefore its not surprising that RW is being touted again to be the saviour of Barbados.Meanwhile I am happy to see the positive spin it might enable,but I have no doubt that the MoF and his erstwhile accompanist on his recent trip to the UK looking for new investment money, and which was a failure,(his adviser was able to find a few more toy cars to add to his collection)dug into the history of the RW project and sought and got their blessing on this public relations gimmick.Lets hope Barbados is the better for it.What of Four Seasons.You mean after 6 years nothing is happening there yet?I thought the Dems had the antidote!Froon,take out your red ink pen.Some of your ministers have to account for this stagnation man!

  24. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Helicopter view | July 5, 2013 at 8:46 AM |

    No! We will not dismiss the comments made by RW regarding the foreign interests being expressed to invest in Barbados.
    FDI is always welcome even if it is the type that you and your stupid administration decried previous to 2008 accusing those who facilitated such investment in real estate as selling out Barbados to foreigners.

    But the chickens have come home to roost except for the Harlequin and Merricks hens.

    So when can we get similar interests around the Four Seasons villas project not only at the expression stage but the actual project restart stage? Or can we just write off Four Seasons and its villas as is about to happen with Merricks, Foul Bay, Pickering et al?

  25. old onion bags Avatar
    old onion bags

    Hey hey….

    Four Seasons? I wonder what will become of that…..hundreds of millions $$$$$ in concrete and rebarr……pushing up vines and bush. St.John Polyclinic better open up soon …or look out!

  26. old onion bags Avatar
    old onion bags

    Looka Rawle got ee own Cropova Tent!….Rawle cud sing calypso doh?

  27. Observer Avatar
    Observer

    Will this latest court action by BIPA have the effect of delaying policyholders getting their money back?

  28. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Observer | July 6, 2013 at 8:35 AM |

    What money back what?
    Where is the money going to come from? Where is government going to find nearly $400 million to meet the shortfall in CLICO assets? The NIS? What about Al Barrack? Has he been paid? Or even the UWI?

    The latest move to have the forensic audit findings “sealed” is for the JM to wash their hands of the decaying matter and to pass it on to the lawyers to fight over the dead body. The JM have had their fill of the decaying meat left on the CLICO body ($12 million and rising).

    The latest court action by the JM is to ask the coroner to release the CLICO cadaver from the political morgue and hand it over to an undertaker for a ‘secret’ burial in the graveyard of legalese guarded by the vultures of financial carrion called lawyers

    The policy holders’ are strongly advised to cut their losses and stop paying premiums. The money will only go to line the pockets of lawyers and consultants fighting over a dead case of massive fraud involving major political players and whose secrets will soon be sealed in a crypt so deep that even a pyramid fit for a pharaoh cannot surpass.

    Not only Bajans have short memories but CLICO policyholders too!
    I shall never LIE, Cheat or Steal or even seek to cover up information on CLICO insider dealings!

  29. Observer Avatar
    Observer

    Miller, have you seen the proposed solution and what is in it for policyholders?

  30. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Observer | July 6, 2013 at 4:18 PM |

    Nothing but the same promises the PM made to them previous to the elections.
    Let us deal with the real situation. The Government does not have one red cent in spare change to deal with the CLICO policyholders’ demands.

    Unless the Government (either D or B in colour) move swiftly to compulsory acquire all of CLICO Holdings real estate there will be no settlement only further haemorrhaging of the policy holders premiums.

    The Government must quickly acquire the lands and property and float a bond backed byespecially the plantation lands to secure the interests and partially compensate the policyholders- both life insurance annuitants and those holding pension certificates (not the gambling EFPA’s as yet) -for their wise decisions to save for their old age and indeed eventual death.

    What do you have to say about that?
    Remember a promise is a comfort a fool and if repeatedly made to the same fool becomes the burden of a jackass.

    You need to ask yourself, “Observer”, if the things proposed to compensate the policyholders are above board why the application to the Court to have the Deloitte Canada forensic audit findings sealed away in legal posterity especially from the eyes of those who certainly will be paying in foreign exchange for such a professionally conducted and highly expensive investigation into white collar financial criminal activities in collusion with political friends and servants.

  31. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Observer |July 6, 2013 at 8:35 AM..”Will this latest court action by BIPA have the effect of delaying policyholders getting their money back?”

    Dear Observer:

    Wake up.

    There is no money.

    The policy holders will NEVER get their money back.

    The money has disappeared into the pockets and bank accounts of others.

    Those others will do all in their power to ensure that you don’t get a cent back.

    Understood?

    Now get lost and stop behaving like a silly child who discovers that Santa Clause in not real.

    There is no money.

    The money gone.

    The money is happy with its new owners.

    The money ain’t coming back to you

  32. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    @Old onions.
    What ever became of Pemberton and his crew the originator”private company” that is Four Seasons? Happens all the time, the Dems have to come in and pick up the pieces. Why is government saddled with a Private company fiasco, just like CLICO?

  33. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Alvin Cummins | July 21, 2013 at 11:37 AM |

    It seems the pieces from these failed and broken projects have been so smashed to smithereens that the DLP vacuum cleaner is unable to suck up the powdery dust.
    Although the BLP did initially contribute to the eventual financial downfall of CLICO by the very poor oversight leading up to 2008 because of not willing to ‘bite’ the hands that will be feeding the electoral beast, it can be convincingly argued these projects failed miserably under the DLP either because of external factors like the onset of international recession or downright out and out fraud as in the case of CLICO.

    It was not the BLP who promised the restart of the Four Seasons project since September 2009 and even threw $120 million of taxpayers’ money behind it with much of it ending up in the overseas bank account of a professional swindler and white collar con man hiding behind academic bullshit. Why do you think the remaining BNB shares were given away at a knockdown price in December 2012? Where did this money go? Back into viable investment projects?

    It was not the BLP that removed the Oversight Committee to allow Leroy Greenverbs to “cannibalize” CLICO’s cash flow and divert millions of dollars of policyholders’ premiums by way of the then PM dirty money laundering machine even after CLICO had run into serious financial difficulties.

    It is not the BLP leadership that made bold-faced promises for cheap electoral advantage to the frightened CLICO policyholders of returning their investments knowing full well this is well-nigh impossible given the fiscal state of the country then and even worse now.

    When you get your “facts” in correct perspective you can then look for ascribing blame.

  34. checkit-out Avatar
    checkit-out

    The CLICO Judicial Manager’s final report has been posted on the FSC website. I posted the URL here on BU last night. I tried to get some comments on the report. None were forthcoming. Wonder why? Since there are many aspects of the report that would appear to be worthy of discussion by the usual BU posters, I thought I would bring up the discussion here again and see if anyone bites this time.

    The link is here; http://www.fsc.gov.bb/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89

    Some things that struck me about the report;

    1) The forensic report is glossed over. Apparently no notice was taken of it in arriving at anything in the JM final report
    2) The solution to the CLICO problem given in the final report is essentially the solution put to the JM manager by the Barbados Government causing them to discard their initial plan that would have involved a write down of assets commensurate with CLICO’s current asset base . The JM’s final report seems to be therefore the Barbados Government’s solution in all pertinent aspects.
    3) If the solution is the Government’s solution Has the JM worked enough for their pay?
    4) The other regional Governments do not appear to have signed on to the strategy in the final document. If so, and if they feel disadvantaged in any way, might there be significant lawsuits to get their corporate EFPA holders a more equitable share of the funds, at least in line with the Individual EFPA holders
    5) Where is the Government going to get the moneys from to support the NEWCO solution? Our bottomless NIS fund again?

    There is obviously lots here for discussion. It will be interesting to see if the BU posters’ appetite for discussion on the CLICO matter has been slaked with the onset of current serious economic issues.

  35. David Avatar
    David

    @checkit-out

    One would have thought BIPA and Fowler would have issued a statement on the outcome by now.

  36. checkit-out Avatar
    checkit-out

    David;

    I agree. On the surface it looks as if they won big. But the devil might be in the details. Some of those details might ve very worrisome to BIPA.

  37. David Avatar
    David

    The vested interest is with BIPA. The general interet is with the forensic part of the matter.

  38. checkit-out Avatar
    checkit-out

    David; Again I agree but BIPA must have some interest in the Forensic audit also since the numbers that it might turn up re. possible additional inter-company and individual shenanigans could be significant and could reflect on the percentage of the wizened calf that BIPA finally gets.

    It is in the Government’s and both political parties’ interest to play down and even hide the likely forensic audit information and therefore it might be in BIPA’s interest to go along with a swift solution that ignores the forensic audit and allows the bajan taxpayers to take up any shortfall. But reality and the current financial situation of the Government suggests that a virtual time bomb is hidden somewhere in the figures and that the solution looks good on paper only.

    What happens when the OECS governments and their corporate policyholders baulk at the bajan solution? What happens when the bajan public realizes that we are the ones subsidizing some big ups who did not take advantage of any opportunity to bail out early but might be now getting an opportunity to get back their full capital? What happens when the general public realizes that serious infelicities might have occurred just like in the Trinidad CLICO situation?

    In fact, the longer the Forensic report takes to be published, the worse it will be for Government since people will tend to believe the worse even if the forensic audit might be amenable to other interpretations.

  39. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ checkit-out | July 25, 2013 at 4:21 PM |
    “Where is the Government going to get the moneys from to support the NEWCO solution? Our bottomless NIS fund again?”

    From the same $400 million will have to be cut from its expenditure budget.

    The JM have earned their fees alright (the miller had initially set it at around $15 million) in putting together a report that reflects the political shenanigans of this administration that is devised to put the whole CLICO fiasco in a state of rigor mortis ready for mortuary.

    How can the JM play this kind of high level sleight-of-hand ‘cotton wool pulling over the eyes of taxpayers’ who will be the ones called on to foot the bill of any CLICO final solution?
    On the one hand they want the suckers called taxpayers to back a major operation to revive the moribund patient CLICO but on the other hand they are trying their “utmost best” to hide the nature of the disease and the potential cause of death (forensic findings) from the proposed financiers.
    With a broke Treasury what do you think would be happening from now on other than the private funeral to be arranged by the bureaucrats pretending to resuscitate the dead?
    The politicians will soon wash their hands of it and would tell you it is being handled by the technocrats in the Ministry of the Twelfth of Never.

    Do you really expect to see a new company arising like a phoenix out of the CLICO Holdings?
    If this were to happen don’t you expect to find Terrence Thornhill to be at the financial helm riding on the phoenix’s wings waving banner of exculpation from his colluded financial crimes?

    This whole CLICO shebang smells of pure unadulterated rotten shit emanating from the corrupt core of this DLP administration.

  40. checkit-out Avatar
    checkit-out

    Miller; I think you are right. Especially with regards to the JMs having earned their Multimillion dollar fees. Of course money is no object for the paymasters whose cup will be kept filled on the backs of the NIS funds being kept in trust for us poor pensioners.

    Have noticed that the usual posters seem to be avoiding this topic like the plague? Where is AC, Well Well, Bushtea, PODRYR, CCC, Alvin Cummins Prodigal, Enuff, Just Asking, and so on and so on? Could it be that there is dirt on both sides of the political fence on this one?

  41. David Avatar
    David

    @checkit-it

    Heard in the news that BIPA has agreed not to press the issue to suppress the forensic report.

  42. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    Now that CLICO Holdings has been placed in Receivership it would be interesting to see if Terrence Thornhill would be retained as President & CEO to draw a six figure salary and associated perks for doing nothing.
    He needs to be fired w.e.f 01 October 2013.

  43. checkit-out Avatar
    checkit-out

    Miller; I wonder who gine pay fuh de leakages between 2009 and 1st October 2013?
    Terrance Thornhill?
    Leroy Parris, the one who is not a leper?
    David Thompson’s estate?

    None of the above?

  44. Polly wants a Pit Bull Avatar
    Polly wants a Pit Bull

    Oh what puppet mastery. All this shiite I mean. CLICO and the millions that went underground.Offices that rush and closed to have none affliatiion. Reports that were said to be stolen.Cud Laud. Now after all we hearing of going into receivership.Where is the integrity and respect in all this?

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