ASSIST

Get-together retrospective

I won't call it a conference. I'm now starting to organise a small-scale informal coordinated gathering, over some sunshine and good food somewhere in the US to be decided, of some of the American professionals who were there. We'll pick up the story from around 2008, through the 2009 portfolio transfer order, right up to the present day, 2026. Topics such as (for example):-

• insurance insolvency fundamentals 1992-2009: why no creditor committees, coordination before the portfolio transfer order? Why no opposition to the application? Little or no coordination among policyholders; the true state of professional knowledge, competence and awareness at the time among the experts

• Berkshire Hathaway, National Indemnity, Equitas Management Services, Resolute Management Services, claims brokers, run-off agents, trust funds, etc.

• Insurance and securities regulators: What have they learned and why didn't they already know it?

• How have old-years long-tail assureds-at-Lloyd's claims been handled and paid? What relevant coverage litigation and arbitration? Any triple-damages bad-faith claims-handling suits? 

• Live blank-cheque no-time-limit Lloyd's APH coverage still out there: what's the plan? Who has what reserves? Reinsurance and retrocession

• Any live recourse against Lloyd's or any other insurers and reinsurers, and brokers, on any proper basis, for anything these days and who cares?

• Corporate assureds-at-Lloyd's, boards, shareholders: financial experiences; the social costs of the shortchanging

• Whatever happened to specific lawyers, underwriters, claims handlers, analysts, pundits, experts? Any malpractice suits?

• The figures, numbers, statistics: who got paid and shortchanged exactly what, and how does it still matter?

• What happened to the American and other Names?

• Today's Lloyd's: as if nothing ever happened? Ringfenced 'profits'. Will it happen again?

Advisory board 

I'm now assembling an honorary advisory board for this project, comprising:-

• professionals and others who were there at the time, in some capacity in some jurisdiction, who can advise on: (1) sources and source material; (2) balance, objectivity, rationality, comprehensiveness; (3) general and technical content 

• professionals and others who were not there at the time but who have some relevant expertise or interest and are in sympathy with the project's aims and objectives.

On this webpage I'll be posting its members as they join. By invitation.

General approach, aspirations

• This project is barristerial, not academic or journalistic.

• It will involve many appropriate sources and much appropriate primary and other source material. 

• It must stand the test of time, and anticipate and withstand the most forceful tort-defamation attack, however ill-advised. 

• It must be beyond all objective reproach: forensically sound; scrupulously accurate; wholly true so far as the truthful and not truthful data go; rational, fair, balanced, well-rounded, objective, calm, sensible and responsible. 

• It must be purged of all content not wholly supported and justified.

• It must do full justice to the good and bad behavior of the period.

• Though the likely readership might presently be adjudged relatively small, the world's biggest ever insolvency is not wholly without importance, relevance, interest or significance on various levels; the present absence of a definitive account is striking (not that it's not worth doing; maybe no-one has been inclined or able to do it); and no-one can gainsay the importance of percipiently reciting and accurately recording the saga in full for the record, or that now is the time to do it.

More about sources, source material

It's of the utmost importance that I talk — nonymously or anonymously, and always confidentially — detailed substance with relevant appropriate people who were there at the time: lawyers on all sides, working Names, external Names, mini-Names, judges, arbitrators, accountants, auditors, actuaries, underwriters, claims managers, placing brokers, claims brokers, coverholders, run-off agents, members' agents, managing agents, trustees, insurance regulators, securities regulators, self-regulators, legislators, politicians, law enforcement, corporate policyholders (boards and in-house counsel), bookkeepers, archivists, insolvency practitioners, private detectives, journalists, environmental activists, historians, researchers, etc. 

I wonder where they are now.

Of course many perpetrators, victims and other participants are now retired or have died. 

Some participants of the period have forgotten all about it; are still scarred but have moved on and want nothing to do with this project; are deeply scarred, have not moved on, and now evidence intractable mental illness… I suspect that relatively few survivors will want to get involved. All the more reason to persist in finding those who do. The project is substantial; time is short.

Your participation 

is especially appropriate if you think, especially on any subject or issue particularly familiar to you, there's any risk that I might omit, misunderstand, mis-state or misconstrue something material, or be materially misled, or be at risk of being unfair to or inaccurate about anyone. I have to be sufficiently and correctly informed about every point that goes in the book and every person mentioned in it.

Getting started

If you have anything to contribute, including documents, please email me confidentially for an initial discussion: rszrabe@protonmail.com. (Protonmail is an end-to-end-encrypted email service, but there are more secure ways to communicate, share and upload data. We can discuss.)