(Trinidad Guardian) Ten policyholders seeking to recover their investments in Colonial Life Insurance Co Ltd (Clico) yesterday filed a petition to wind up the troubled financial institution. The lawsuit follows calls from all ten investors to Clico management, as well as Central Bank of T&T (CBTT), to have their investments repaid to them. Ten Executive Flexible Premium Annuity (EFPA) policyholders—Percy Farrell, Marina Inalsingh, Professor Gordon Rohlehr, David Dayal, Michael Alexander, Brian Gibbons, Hamish Herrera, Sandra Mc Shine, Eugene McShine and Norris Gomez—filed the petition after each unsuccessfully wrote to Clico and CBTT asking for repayment of their investments.
Gomez, a former Clico agent and the founder of the Clico Policyholders Group, was also named as one of the applicants seeking to wind up Clico and recover his investment. Under the winding up rules in Section 76 of the Insurance Act, Chapter 84:01, a group of ten investors can file a petition for the winding up of a financial institution if the company is deemed bankrupt and they cannot recover their investments. Yesterday, a summons for leave to bring the winding up petition was filed at the Registry of the Port-of-Spain High Court. The application for leave was also served on lawyers for Clico and CBTT just before 4 pm. The law offices of Dr Claude Denbow, SC, acted on behalf of the applicants.
Under Section 76(2) of the Act, the applicants would have to prove a “prima facie” case to obtain leave of the court to go through with the petition. The action comes just days after five of the applicants filed a court action in response to the proposed payout plan announced by the Finance Minister in his budget speech on September 8, last year. It also represents yet another set of legal wrangling now placed before the High Court, involving policyholders and depositors of Clico and Clico Investment Bank (CIB)—subsidiaries of the CL Financial Group. On April 15, 2010, Inspector of Financial Institutions Carl Hiralal, also named as interim manager of CIB, filed a petition to wind up CIB. A hearing date will be set to deal with the preliminary issue of leave for the winding up of Clico.
What the Act states
Section 76 (1) of the Insurance Act states: “The court may order a winding up of a company in accordance with the Companies Act…
(a) on the petition of ten or more policyholders owning policies of an aggregate sum of assured of not less than one hundred thousand dollars.”
Section 76(2): A petition shall not be presented except by leave of the court , and such leave shall not be granted unless—
(a) a prima facie case has been established to the satisfaction of the Court.
