(Trinidad Express) “Outraged, flabbergasted and appalled,” is how Peter Permell, chairman of the CLICO Policyholders Group, describes the group’s reaction to disclosures about insurance company CLICO and its parent conglomerate CL Financial which have come out of the ongoing Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of these companies.
“Once the evidence is there, (former CL Financial executives) should feel the full brunt of the law. We have no problem at all with the law taking its course. We have always said if you do the crime you should do the time,” said Permell in a telephone interview yesterday.
“The thing about it is we have not heard the entire story yet so we want to ensure we are not premature or precipitous in our statements and we would want to hear all the evidence. As you know we are a party of the CoE because we are the victims. This Commission is for us to find out what really went on at CLICO. We are being very cautious in our statement, but certainly based on what we are hearing, if that is true and these things are substantiated, it is certainly grounds for further actions,” he added.
Permell was speaking after a meeting with acting Finance Minister Vasant Bharath at the Ministry of Finance in Port of Spain yesterday about how the Government plans to roll out payment settlements to policyholders with policies worth over $75,000.
“The meeting was rather cordial and productive and the effective date of the roll out of the offer is the first week of October. This is just a preliminary meeting; certainly we couldn’t get through with clarification of all these issues because this meeting was with the Acting Minister, not the Finance Minister. Some of the issues that were clarified were the transferability of the bonds (bonds will be able to be passed from person to person), and also that the bonds will be transferred to holders electronically, so you won’t get any certificate, but a statement every month or quarterly regarding their status,” said Permell.
Policyholders with “short term-investment products” (policies) worth over $75,000 will receive an initial lump sum of $75,000 and the rest will be issued in Government bonds in denominations of $1,000.
He said the issue regarding the establishment of a second National Enterprises Ltd (NEL2) company was still being sorted out, but the ministry gave a timeline of about three months.
The Republic Bank shares that were owned by CL Financial (and now belong to the Government after the January 2009 bailout of that conglomerate) will be vested in NEL2. Shareholders will have the option of trading in the face value of their government bonds for shares in NEL2.
“You still have the option to refuse. At the end of the day, the decision will be up to each policyholder whether to accept the offer or not,” said Permell.
