OLIVE BRANCH FOR DUPREY

Plans for the olive branch meeting were afoot yesterday, with Policyholder Group chairman Peter Permell remaining tight-lipped over the venue – only that it is in north Trinidad and will be after lunch. But he confirmed Duprey himself will be there. “This is the first time that this policyholders’ group headed by yours truly has ever met with Mr Duprey or will ever be meeting with Mr Duprey,” Permell told Newsday yesterday,

“We have never met with him before, never met with him outside of this meeting that is going to come off tomorrow (today). I have never met with him before the crash or since the crash up to today.” Permell did not want to reveal the full agenda for the meeting, however he said that at the top is Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s statements on the CLICO/CLF Resolution Plan during his mid-year review in Parliament last week and “the way forward”, for his (Permell) group of policyholders to be paid their, “just due.” In Imbert’s mid-year review, he revealed that CL Financial now owes approximately $27.7 billion to taxpayers, $20.3 billion of which was directly injected into the company’s bailout since 2009. The difference, according to Imbert, was accrued via “advisory fees and other costs”, and other liabilities,

Imbert further estimated after “legitimate non-conflicted third party creditors” are paid, CLICO would be left with $2.8 billion in government bonds, cash and equity in several other companies,

Permell believes Imbert was “speaking in parables”, but truly repeating the government’s previously stated unwillingness to pay his group of policy holders,

Imbert said in the Senate in July 7, 2016, that Permell’s group of “assenting policyholders” assigned their rights to their policies to the government, when they accepted the former PP government’s offer of zero coupon bonds and CLICO Investment Fund shares,

“This group gave up their right to accrued interest and these individuals no longer have a contractual arrangement with CLICO, and do not form part of the Resolution Plan,” Imbert said,

Permell said the agreement referred to by Imbert was made between Government and the Central Bank-appointed Directors of CL Financial, who were placed in charge of the company when the Central Bank took control,

“We have not seen any such agreement and there is no way a government could agree not to pay policy holders money that is due to them from the company,” Permell said. Permell said policy holders have a contractual agreement with CLICO,

Their assigning rights to government was only as security for government. However, Permell said as CLICO has returned to some degree of stability as seen in its $2.8 billion in assets, “those policies must now be released back to the policyholders and if there is money, then CLICO has to pay the policyholders the difference.” Permell’s group has already been paid $75,000 and the balance in zero interest bonds,

The sum amounted to “a very rough estimate” of 85 percent of the total amount owed, said Permell. They are now seeking to be paid, “all their contractual entitlements.” Permell said he has been a loud critic of former group chairman Duprey in the past, but that, “Mr Duprey has indicated he is sorry. He apologised to policy holders and wants to pay policyholders the balance of money due to them. But he can only do that of course, if he gets back his money...so everything is linked in that sense,” Permell said,

After disappearing from the public eye since the bailout of 2009, Duprey returned in 2015, asking for his majority shares in the regional conglomerate to be returned to him for his “fixing.” “So, if he is telling us that if he gets back his company that he is prepared to make good on the people’s policies, we have an obligation to sit down and hear what he has to say,” Permell said,