- Investors in a £100m Isle of Man compensation battle have been told to wait again for judgment
- Closing submissions ended in May 2024 after a seven-week trial at Douglas
- High CourtActing Deemster James Corbett KC has delayed the ruling for a seventh time
- Seventeen of the 739 claimants have died since the trial concluded
- Claimants say they lost life savings in products sold as safe and low-risk
- Utmost International and Friends Provident International deny the allegations
Two years after a seven-week trial ended, claimants who say they lost their life savings are still waiting for a judgment – and they keep dying before it arrives.
Closing submissions in the case against Utmost International, formerly Old Mutual, then Quilter International, and Friends Provident International (FPI) concluded in May 2024, following a seven-week trial at Douglas High Court. More than two years on, Acting Deemster James Corbett KC has still not handed down his ruling.
Claimants had most recently been told to expect the judgment on Monday June 8. But Deemster Corbett has now informed the court that circulation of the draft judgment has been delayed once more. An update will follow “in due course,” the court says — but no date has been given. It is the seventh time a promised date has come and gone.
The human cost of the delay is stark. Seventeen of the 739 claimants have now died since the trial concluded, many of them elderly and vulnerable investors who say they lost their life savings in products that were sold to them as safe.
Niall Coburn, managing director of Coburn Corporate Intelligence, who brought the action on behalf of investors, called the situation a “disgrace for the Isle of Man judicial system.”
“It is now over two years since the hearing, and the seventh date of broken promises to hand down the judgments by the Deemster,” he said. “Seventeen investors have passed away in the meantime, and many are old and vulnerable investors that lost life savings in financial products sold by Friends Provident International and Utmost. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
A court spokesperson has confirmed that the Acting Deemster has suffered health issues that contributed to the delays. In an earlier update, the court said it remained in close contact with him and was awaiting confirmation of a revised timetable.
What the claimants allege
The claimants are mainly British nationals and expats scattered across the world. They say they were sold life assurance products marketed as safe and low-risk, but which were in fact built on investment funds that ultimately collapsed.
They argue the companies misrepresented the products and failed to carry out “some minimum standard of due diligence review” on the underlying funds among them the New Earth Fund, the Axiom Legal Financial Fund, the LM Group of Funds, the Eco Resources Fund and the Kijani Community Fund.
The lead claimant against FPI is Bangkok-based Peter Kells, who with other investors sought damages of more than £50m for alleged negligence and misrepresentation. The first claimant against Utmost is Barry Dickinson, also based in Thailand, again seeking £50m over the same failed products.
Both firms contest the claims. FPI is part of Castletown-based International Finance Group Limited; Utmost International IoM is based at King Edward Bay House in Onchan. Before its sale to the Utmost Group in 2021, Utmost International IoM was known as Quilter International, and before that Old Mutual International and Skandia.
“Reputational risks when funds go bad”
During the original trial, the court heard from IFGL group sales director Simon Pack, who expressed surprise at the suggestion that sales reps of life companies could have held formal meetings with independent financial advisers and fund promoters. His concern, he said, was that a life company’s presence at such a meeting could be read as promoting a particular fund.
“We were not in a position to recommend funds. We are not there to give advice,” he told the court. Pack accepted there could be reputational risks when funds “go bad.” Put to him that a downside of declining to “on-board” a fund was that a competitor might take it up instead, he replied: “Just because another is doing it doesn’t mean it’s right.”
The exchange drew sharp public reaction at the time, with observers noting that life companies routinely meet IFAs and fund promoters — the very mechanism by which funds reach their platforms.
A much bigger fight is coming
This £100m case is only the opening act. A second, far larger class action against the same two insurers is set for a 10-week trial beginning March 15, 2027. Some 1,600 claimants from around 40 countries have lodged claims, and three sets of proceedings are being case-managed together.
A recent case management hearing set deadlines for the disclosure of tens of thousands of documents spanning a 28-year period. Acting Deemster Hodge Malek KC ruled that next year’s trial will involve 20 test cases and will be restricted to questions of liability. If liability is established, a “phase two” hearing would follow to deal with causation, loss and damages.
For now, though, the 722 surviving claimants in the original case are left where they have been for more than two years: waiting. As Coburn put it, justice delayed is justice denied.
