CLICO Policyholders File Appeal To Privy Council

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) United Policyholders Group has filed an appeal before the Privy Council claiming that the Court of Appeal erred when it overruled a lower court and supported an argument by the Trinidad and Tobago government that there is no money to pay the policyholders.

Former attorney general, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, addressing policyholders in Chagnuanas in Central Trinidad, on Sunday, said that the appeal had been filed last Friday.

The policyholders contend that the Court of Appeal erred in several areas, including allowing the Government to withdraw its concession that the group of policyholders had legitimate expectations based on promises made by the previous government; that the promises made by the last administration were not clear; that the Government was justified in breaching the legitimate expectations of the policyholders; and that there was sufficient overriding public interest to justify government departing from any legitimate expectation and their ignorance of the judge’s finding of fact and their failure to explain why it did this.

The Trinidad and Tobago government has said it spent billions of dollars (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) in a bailout plan for the insurance giant after it collapsed in 2009.

The Kamla Persad Bissessar administration had established a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the circumstances that led to the collapse of CLICO.

Maharaj told policyholders that CLICO has approximately TT$17 billion in cash and challenged Finance Minister, Larry Howai, to provide a detailed account of the company’s assets, its current value and potential market value during the time when the reduced offer was made to policyholders in 2011 and now.

Maharaj said, when the former People’s National Movement (PNM) administration recognised that CLICO and its parent company, CL Financial, were experiencing financial difficulties, the then finance minister, made an open statement in the Parliament promising policyholders not to remove their monies and investments as they would guarantee its return.

Maharaj said, based on the announcement and because they believed the Government guarantee could be relied upon, “these policyholders have kept their money in CLICO.

“They are not asking for money to be paid to them, that does not belong to them,” he said, referring to Sections 37 and 80 and of the Insurance Act that provides for a statutory fund and which compels the government to ensure that an insurance company has sufficient assets or money in that fund so that the policyholder would not suffer in the event of the company going into liquidation.

Maharaj said, that the coalition Peoples Partnership government reneged on this guarantee within months of assuming office, and that the 350 policyholders were never consulted about their investments before they were offered an enhanced package in 2011.

He said, it was also a “scandal in the legal profession” when the government retained a Queen’s Counsel to challenge the High Court’s decision which was in favour of the policyholders.

Maharaj said he was confident of winning the appeal before the Privy Council, the island’s highest court, and that the Government was also attempting to stymie these efforts as they were objecting to an early hearing likely to be held in March.

“I am 500 percent confident that you will be successful before the Privy Council. I am telling you today, that your judgment in the Court of Appeal was wrong and you will win in the Privy Council,” Maharaj told shareholders.

He said, the delay in settling this matter had led to people dying as they were unable to afford proper healthcare and medication, children being “murdered” as their families were left penniless and others having their education cut short as they had to be taken out of school.

“What is the sense you putting on a Santa Claus hat and coat and going all over the country and you killing children? You actually murdered them by your policy,” Maharaj said.