Life after the Lords
NEXT week the members of the Equitable Life Assurance Society will be asked to re- elect Jennifer Page as a director. This is the unfortunate lady who, as chief executive of the New Millennium Experience Company, made such a success of the Dome that the board (chairman: Robert Ayling) found that it could do without her. They could ask her how she would make their society a popular attraction. The votes that count, though, will be cast next month by the five law lords who will pass judgment on the Equitable's attempt to render its promises worthless. It sold life assurance (as you may recall) by guaranteeing the rate of interest on the annuities that the holders could buy when the policies matured. When the guar- antees turned out to be expensive, the Equitable came up with the barefaced assertion that the directors could and would pay smaller bonuses on these poli- cies, thus shrinking their value to fit. A High Court judge said this was legal, the Court of Appeal overruled him, and now the House of Lords will have the last word. If the Equitable wins its case, it may yet have a future, under a stronger board with the wits to see that life assurers will not prosper by wriggling out of their promises or round them. If it loses, its 238 years of independence must be numbered.
Previous page
