LITIGATION PLAN 

18 August 2004 Litigants' Newsletter

INTRODUCTION

We have previously indicated that we believe the best if not only solution to persuade the Equitable Life Assurance Society (ELAS) to compensate us the With-Profits Annuitants (WPAs) is to pursue compensation for mis-selling through the English courts.

We have been working with Clarke Willmott of Bristol since early January and whilst the final wording of all the documents are not yet complete, the legal action sub-committee of myself, (Peter Scawen), Nicholas Oglethorpe and Nicolas Bellord, both retired solicitors, consider we have reached a point where we believe that we can recommend this course of action to you being the best chance of obtaining compensation and redress for the wrongs done to us.

If you decide to join with other WPAs in this group action against the Society for compensation for our losses due to mis-selling then we have to take the following actions which are in two main stages:

1) You send all the requested documentation plus a cheque for £100 to Clarke Willmott. Of this, £20 will go ELTA to cover the administrative expenses of running the claim and £80 will go to Clarke Willmott. For this, they will obtain the advice of a QC on all the legal aspects of the group action and they will consider whether each individual meets the criteria for participating in the group action. This cheque is not refundable.

2) If the advice is positive and you meet the criteria for participation you will be eligible to join the group action should you wish to do so. In these circumstances you will be required to send a further cheque to Clarke Willmott as a contribution to some of the expenses of the main litigation. This will be a fixed maximum fee and we do not anticipate this will exceed £900 as explained below.

 The basis of the case is set out in the letter from Clarke Willmott addressed to me, dated 1 April 2004, and is we think fairly self-explanatory. The litigation will be on a No-Win No Fee basis, otherwise known as a Conditional Fee Arrangement (CFA).  This means Clarke Wilmott will only receive payment if the courts rule in our favour or if the case settles. However, we have to ensure that we are in a position to pay what I call 3^rd party costs, the lawyers call disbursements, not covered by the CFA. These include insurance so that we can pay the Society’s costs if we lose, counsel’s fees, court fees, ELTA expenses, etc. Clarke Willmott has stated that they believe we should set aside approximately £365,000 for this purpose, which already includes a 25% contingency allowance. We think it would be prudent to set aside a budget of £450,000 which assuming we have 500 WPAs in the group action means that each WPA needs to pay £900 to participate in the litigation. In normal circumstances a WPA is either a single annuitant or a couple living at the same address but given today’s social culture other situations will be considered sympathetically by the Clarke Willmott and the legal action sub-committee. If in the event, the actual costs are lower than budgeted, the excess will be refunded.

It is intended that each participant in the litigation will automatically join a special purpose company or association that will bring the case against the Society on behalf of its members. This association will have a constitution and membership rules which will be sent to each WPA before you are asked to send your cheque for the costs of the main litigation stage.

We anticipate that every WPA who contributes the initial £100 will do so on the basis that they are willing and able to contribute the necessary sum for the main litigation. We therefore hope to have an idea, in the next few weeks, of how many participants there will be in the action and therefore how much the next stage costs will be.

We must be clear that if we do NOT receive enough participants to enable to the target budget for the main action to be reached, then the litigation will NOT proceed simply because it will not be affordable.

The detailed steps that we are asking you to follow to be included in the litigation are as follows:

1) Register with ELTA

a)  If you have access to the Internet, then this is done simply by completing the Questionnaire that you can find on the ELTA web site (www.elta.org.uk). Please send that to Tim Balkwill at TBalkwill5310448@aol.com. At the same time please send you name and address details to Peter Scawen at eltaorg@aol.com .

b)      If you do not have access to the Internet, then a copy of the questionnaire can be obtained from Tim Balkwill at Mid Comp Farm, Comp Lane, Sevenoaks, Kent. TN15 8QT to whom you should return the completed document.

Clarke Willmott has advised that we must be in a position to issue proceedings by 15 July 2004. It is therefore vital that they have your documentation as soon as possible.

For those ELTA members who have NOT yet sent in their material to Clarke Willmott maybe in the hope that the AGM of the Society would present another choice, I imagine you will now realise that whilst the Society is pursuing the option of encouraging the P.O. to do some more research and produce another report, which is all to the good, by the time the report is produced we will all be time barred from taking action against the Society.

So as I have said before, and if you have not already done so, time is not on our side so it is vital that your details are registered with Clarke Willmott as soon as possible just to make sure you can be included in the procedure before the proceedings are issued.

Members will not be able to join in the litigation at a later date.