AVC (C Plan) members and others might might be interested in the ombudsman's view of the role of the FSA in monitoring/managing the Equitable Life situation. Liz Kwantes has put a copy on her excellent website - a link is below to a pdf copy of the findings. To give you a flavour of how sensible the findings are an extract of part is below:
5. Findings
Although they were inherently weak
financially, because of their policy of not holding back
substantial free reserves and of distributing as much as
possible to policyholders, Equitable had made no secret of
that policy, which had been a key feature in their publicity
and marketing strategy. The inescapable consequence of
that policy, which they also publicised widely, was that
policyholders would follow the company's fortunes. That
relative 'weakness' was not of itself therefore a reason
for intervention, as policyholders were well aware of it.
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How the ombudsman doesn't recognise that whilst industry insiders knew this - the public clearly didn't.
This is bad news for EL policyholders and for any confidence that the government wants to do the right things in these matters. The Penrose enquiry (out later) is unlikely to produce sufficient weight to counter the complacency in government to counter the effect of this report.
GG