26 MARCH 1988, Page 23

Bad luck at Lloyd's?

LLOYD'S of London looks set for another lawsuit. Tom Benyon, sometime Con- servative MP and chairman until 1986 of the Association of Lloyd's Members, has written to his fellow 'names' on Syndicate 553 — heading, he warns them, for a loss of 200 per cent or worse. He asks them to meet at Lloyd's next month and hear legal advice on the question of 553's manage- ment. The old members of Lloyd's would have paid up and looked unhappy. The new members have learned to distinguish between bad luck (pay) and other ways of losing money (don't pay). That makes for a different kind of marketplace, and one where the firms will need different kinds of structure, and of capital.