Equitable Life launches suit against ex-directors

FORMER non-executive directors of Equitable Life are claiming that the £1.7 billion (€2.5 billion) lawsuit launched against them by the crisis-hit insurer was simply a way of getting into the “deeper pockets” of its one-time auditors, Ernst & Young.

As Equitable’s lawyers began the painstaking task of presenting its highly-complex case to a High Court judge in London yesterday, defence lawyers made public an allegation that chairman Vanni Treves had said the current board had no wish to find scapegoats and that the only basis for a claim against former directors would be “as a conduit to really deep pockets.”

Mr Treves is alleged to have told one of the ex-directors, John Sclater, in May 2001 that the object of the court case was not to bankrupt or imprison him.