Clico depositor collects $109m

ONE of the thousands of Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) depositors received $109 million, a High Court judge was told yesterday, in government’s $7.3 bailout. But despite this disclosure by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, it was acknowledged that CL Financial still owes taxpayers $280 million since 2000, plus $850 million.

For security reasons, Senior Counsel Deborah Peake, in revealing this to High Court judge Frank Seepersad, said the Ministry of Finance is very concerned about revealing the names of people who received very large sums. Social activist Afra Raymond won yet another lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act yesterday in the San Fernando High Court, the judge ruling that the minister must tell him how many people were paid in the bailout and the amounts paid.

Seepersad agreed with Peake, however, that people should not be made targets by criminals, and so their names must be withheld. But Seepersad, in a 46-page judgment, said there is a cloud of secrecy over pay-outs and government’s recovery from CL Financial assets.

In January 2009, the government rescued CLICO with taxpayers' funds, using assets of CL Financial as collateral. But whether government is recovering while shareholders and depositors are receiving millions, Seepersad said in his judgment that the ministry admitted that CL Financial had been disposing of assets, but none of the monies have been credited to the government. Raymond filed a lawsuit against the ministry seeking the identities of people paid off with public funds and amounts. The ministry challenged the matter and filed affidavits in which it disclosed information about payouts, but also revealed CL Financial liabilities to the government as well.

Seepersad said, “The defendant (the ministry) listed significant asset disposals by CL Financial since the June 12, 2009 shareholders' agreement and stated that none of those sums have been credited to the government. There is, however, no clarity as to how the total sum of those monies was estimated or how the said sums are being recovered.

“At paragraph 35 of the said affidavit, the defendant referred to the statement of affairs produced by CIB’s liquidators as at October 16, 2015, which recorded total assets of TT$6,162,298,235.17 and total liabilities of TT$10,069,373,427. Those figures reflect a state of an insolvency of TT$3,907,075,191.83 as liabilities far exceed assets.”

Seepersad said all is not well in the bailout and the payments made should be subject to rigorous public scrutiny, andcalled for the release of the contents of the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of CLICO. In 2011, British jurist Sir Anthony Colman started the inquiry and presented his findings in June 2016. He died in 2017.