What have the government got to hide about Equitable Life?
Despite the government wheeling out a statement suggesting that many of those customers who lost money in Equitable Life will receive compensation in the years to come, Ann Abraham of the Parliamentary ombudsman has hit out at the government's interpretation of her report. The report into the Equitable Life saga was deeply critical of the UK government and the regulatory regime created to look after the industry and she believes her 2800 page report was misrepresented and evidence was "rearranged".
Despite the government accepting the vast majority of her points in the report they have since gone on to appoint a new High Court judge to rule on the compensation scheme although this could take years to put into place. It is not widely known but the UK government has also directed the new judge to ignore claims prior to 1999 which effectively rules out 90% of those who suffered from the collapse.
This whole Equitable Life saga has dragged on for far too long and even now the UK government is attempting to "kick the saga into the long grass" in the hope that it will be forgotten about. Many are now wondering why the government is being so aggressive in defending the situation even though in public it has admitted errors and promised to pay compensation.
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