Drop director claim, Equitable urged

Former Equitable directors have hailed the mutual’s climbdown with regard to
E&Y as an opportunity for the society to drop the entire claim.

Equitable had been suing both former directors and former auditors E&Y as
part of a joint court action.

Today’s dropping of the £700m claim against E&Y leaves only a claim
against former directors, many of whom have little or no money to pay out even
if Equitable were successful.

Tim House of Allen & Overy, the lead litigation partner on the case
representing six of the non executive directors, said: ‘As has been made clear
from the outset, the claim against the directors is hopeless and a waste of
policyholders’ money.

‘As Mr Treves has previously stated that the only reason the directors were
being pursued was to get at the “deep pockets” of Ernst & Young, continuing
the claim against the directors is now completely pointless. We look forward to
the Society seeing sense and withdrawing that claim as well.’