Equitable Life sufferers to receive compensation
The government has finally come clean with regards to the shocking saga of the collapse of Equitable Life. Many thousands of UK investors lost substantial amounts of money when the former insurance company collapsed after a bid to reduce its mortgage guarantee liabilities. The announcement of a compensation scheme administered by the government comes with an apology from Treasury Minister Yvette Cooper with regards to the handling of the situation since 1990 and maladministration by various regulators.
While on the surface this looks like a massive U-turn by the UK government in reality there was little choice after a damning report sometime ago which pointed the finger at various government departments and regulators while looking at the reasons for the collapse. The compensation scheme is aimed at policyholders who suffered "disproportionately" from the collapse and would appear to cut out a number of policyholders who still lost money.
As ever, the devil is in the detail and the government has still to announce the fine print of the compensation scheme, the terms of the compensation scheme and when payments can be expected. This has been something of an embarrassment for successive governments since 1990 and has taken nearly 20 years to bring to fruition despite a number of rulings suggesting the government was partly to blame.
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