Andy Agethangelou – Transparency Task Force
I went to a Transparency Taskforce event at the office of Hausfeld, to hear the voice of the Transparency Task Force and to honour Chris Sier, who helped TTF be founded in 2015 but who will be with us for only a few days.
I have had dealings with Ned Beale of Hausfeld , working with Al Rush (Port Talbot’s Pension Paramedic). Hausfeld is a positive influence on legislation for consumers.
Ned Beale and Simon Bishop of Hausfeld
This blog is for Sier and Keating who had a vision ten years ago and its for Andy Agethangelou who has realised that vision, ever since.
Opposed to the banking lobby “Fair Civil Justice”
Hausfeld stand up for the right of consumers to stand up against bad behaviour by corporations and take them to the court. They are standing up against formidable lobbying from an organisation known as Fair Civil Justice ( a misnomer).
Fair Civil Justice is American founded and funded and intends that consumers will not win compensation such as they are doing against the likes of Lloyds Bank FirstRand and Close Brothers (who ripped the nation off over car finance). The Department of Business and Trade are consulting on disabling consumer led litigation through the likes of Agethangelou, Paul Carlier (serial campaigner against bad banking behaviour) and Violation Tracker (here represented by Maia Kirby of Good Jobs First.
There is a limited time (next Tuesday) to consult with the Department of Business and Trade about the right of consumers to take class action against corporates. I think it important it is maintained and wish Hausfeld, these individuals and the TTR in general good fortune in doing so.
Maia Kirby
Strengthening the regulation of the FCA to protect the consumer.
The meeting I attended, followed the FCA’s annual public meeting. The mood of the 30 odd TTF members who attended can be summed up by Maia Kirby after the event.
The long term expectations by the TTF itself. It’s demand of the FCA is laid out below.
You can download this document here.
The voice of this blog
A group of pension experts lead by William McGrath, including consumerists such as Con Keating, Bob Compton and myself are working on improving the rights of people in DB pension schemes threatened by being bought out into Bulk Purchase Annuities.
The PRA (the Bank of England’s regulatory arm) has expressed concern about funded reinsurance moving assets backing pensioner promises to Bermuda. The ownership of privately owned and most untransparent American private equity companies. We have seen PIC, Just and Utmost following this route, L&G have a partnership which could take it that way (it has tried in the past).
We worry that very little due diligence appears to be done on the value of buy-out to consumers. The Financial Reporting Council has created an actuarial standard known as TAS 300. But this is not being used to promote the position of all sides as it should.
Work is being done by McGrath and others in its own transparency group to help strengthen TAS 300 and make it easier for action groups of consumers not happy to see their pensions become annuities (and sometimes reinsured Bermudian annuities backed by American private equity).
The consumer voice is being heard – it must not be silenced.
More is to come on this, but this message goes to TTF, Hausfeld and Violation UK. We are not deaf to the work you do and thank you for it. We will be in touch.
Nor should we forget the work of Al Rush , speaking up for the former BSPS pension members who have a complaint with the FCA. This is another test of the state of transparency in the UK and one I hope will side with the consumer.
The consumer’s voice insists on being heard.
