Equitable chiefs urged to quit over E&Y farce
Charles Thomson and Vanni Treves face angry questions from policyholders after a year in which the life insurer tried - and failed - to win a huge negligence claim against Ernst & Young
Equitable Life’s chairman and chief executive were urged to quit yesterday
over their failed attempt to extract more than £2bn from Ernst & young in a
negligence action over the society’s near-collapse.
Policyholders at the Annual General Meeting called on chairman Vanni Treves
and chief executive Charles Thomson to stand down after the high-profile trial
collapsed with both sides agreeing only to pay their own costs.
‘The legal advisers we had should be fired, the chairman and chief executive
should resign as I reckon they have cost the society £300m,’ one policyholder
told the meeting, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Thomson received 60% of his performance bonus last year in spite of the
collapse of the case.
Equitable had tried to claim that E&Y had failed to make appropriate
provisions for various liabilities that grew hugely in value in the late 1990s.