Gets on board to deal with collapse of CLICO/BAICO
by STAFF WRITER
ROSEAU, Dominica, Jun 27, CMC – The Dominica parliament Monday approved legislation that provides a framework to aid in the resolution of the insolvency of British-American Insurance Company limited (BAICO) and Colonial Life Insurance Company Limited (CLICO).
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who tabled the legislation, said member governments of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) had through the Monetary Council of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) sought to address the challenges caused by the collapse of Trinidad-based conglomerate that left several policy holders being owed millions of dollars.
The ECCU member territories are Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The government said that the Plan of Arrangement BAICO/CLICO Act 2016, will allow local creditors to be involved in the plan of arrangement for the resolution of the two insurance companies.
The ECCB Monetary Council has appointed a core committee to deal with the daily operational matters while it continues to oversee the activities.
Skerrit told legislators that funds provided by the Trinidad and Tobago government had been used to meet the financial obligations to a number of small BAICO policyholders and that the remaining BAICO business has been transferred to Sagicor Insurance.
He acknowledged that policy holders as well as institutions that invested in annuities have not recovered their investments and that CLICO remains largely unresolved.
“In order to successfully implement the proposed plan of arrangement and provide payments to BAICO policyholders under the plan, a uniform law effecting a plan of arrangement regime must be passed in all eight ECCU territories and the Bahamas,” Skerrit said.
The Plan of Arrangement BAICO/CLICO Act 2016 bill, to be legislated in all ECCU territories, has so far been approved in Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines and has been submitted to the parliaments of Anguilla and St Kitts and Nevis.
Skerrit said the legislation is essential to protect the process which has been followed for resolving the CLICO and BAICO matters.
“In fact, the governments of the ECCU, through the judicial managers, are not able to make any further progress in seeking to help policyholders recover some of their investments in CLICO and BAICO without this arrangement,” he said.
“Madam Speaker, the process with dealing with CLICO and BAICO matters have been long and taxing, while the investments made in the insurance companies were private arrangements, this government and the government of the ECCU have made every effort, every effort, to try to recover the investment of our citizens,” he added.
Opposition legislator, Ezekiel Bazil, said the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) supports the bill as its intention is to facilitate this long awaited distribution of the assets of BAICO and to a lesser extent CLICO.
“In Dominica, the citizens have a lot at stake in this arrangement since they have already experienced serious losses and this framework, hopefully, will minimize any losses the people, well at least in part, would experience and as a result it is not a bill Madam Speaker, that I think that we should not support, however like anything else it must be managed,” Bazil said.
