Olive branch offered to Equitable Life board

An action group for policyholders of troubled mutual Equitable Life said today it had written to the society’s board offering an olive branch.

An action group for policyholders of troubled UK mutual Equitable Life said today it had written to the society’s board offering an olive branch.

Equitable Members’ Action Group (EMAG), which also announced the appointment of a new chairman today, said it hoped the move would lead to renewed co-operation between the group and Equitable’s directors.

It comes a fortnight after Equitable’s chairman Vanni Treves launched a stinging attack on EMAG at the mutual’s annual general meeting.

He said: “EMAG through its leadership has been consistently vicious, volatile, venomous and vindictive and bluntly we regard them as untrustworthy and unreliable.”

Responding to a question from a policyholder about why the board and the group could not work together, Mr Treves showed the meeting a series of extracts from letters in which EMAG had accused the board of spin and manipulation, and “shoddy manipulative trickery”.

However, EMAG said today its chairman Alex Henney was stepping down after two years, with his deputy Colin Slater taking his place.

Paul Braithwaite, general secretary of EMAG, said in a letter to Mr Treves: “The committee of EMAG, including myself, hope that this may renew co-operation between EMAG and Equitable Life with regard to the recovery from public funds of compensation for policyholders, whether on account of maladministration and/or breach of European Community Law.

“Colin has a history of co-operation with the Equitable Life board going back to the consultation phase of the compromise in 2001.”

He added that while EMAG must reserve its right to comment on aspects of Equitable’s governance which it thought were against policyholders’ interests, it recognised the “desirability of any such comments being made in suitably measured terms”.

Equitable was plunged into difficulties after losing a House of Lords ruling over the rights of its guaranteed annuity rate policyholders, leaving it with a £1.5bn (€2.3bn) liability and forcing it to close to new business and slash the value of members’ policies.