On 28 November 2008 Equitas successfully applied to the High Court for a waiver from certain notification requirements under Part VII of the Financial Services & Markets Act 2000 that would have made the transfer scheme very difficult to implement as planned.
The main waiver relates to the requirement to send notice of the transfer to every policyholder and reinsurer of the Names. Given the very long period over which business was written at Lloyd's, the millions of policies and the innumerable counterparties, it would have been impossible to fulfil this requirement. Equitas has agreed, instead, to send notice of the transfer directly to major policyholders, reinsurers and claimant solicitors and to all brokers and claims handlers, as well as to undertake a series of road shows.
A second waiver allows Equitas to publish notice of the transfer in one national newspaper and one business newspaper in each of the 30 EEA States, instead of two national newspapers and a business newspaper in each of the 30 EEA States. This will result in a significant time and cost saving. Notices will also be published in countries such as the US, Canada and Australia.
A copy of the Court's judgment can be found here (PDF Document - 930Kb).
This is an encouraging development and we remain optimistic that the transfer will eventually be approved by the Court, although (as we have said before) this cannot be guaranteed.
