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Manulife trial set for 2011

11/5/2009

THE eagerly awaited court case involving Manulife and its former policyholders from Barbados should commence in early 2011.

That’s the word from Patricia A. Speight, one of the Attorneys involved in the action brought against the company.
In correspondence to the Plaintiffs in Barbados, Speight said that the trial coordinator has scheduled the trial of the common issues to commence on April 11, 2011 for a period of 40 days.

“I am sorry that the date is so far in the future but that was the earliest date possible,” she said.

However, Speight acknowledged there may be a pretrial prior to the commencement of the trial. No date has been set for that as yet.

It is the latest development in the long running issue which surfaced when four former policyholders of Manulife brought a class action lawsuit against the company for not compensating Barbadian policyholders when its status was changed.
An Ontario Superior Court judge has certified the Can$150 million class action suit against Manulife Financial Corp.

The four plaintiffs from Barbados, Wismar Greaves, Anthony Bowen, Marcus Jordan (now Sir Marcus) and R. Mandeville, say they were among the 8 000 policyholders left out of lucrative payouts when Manulife demutualised in 1999. Manulife sold its business interests in Barbados in 1996 to the then Life of Barbados Limited (LOB).

LOB has since been acquired the then Barbados Mutual which is now known as the Sagicor financial Corporation.

The class action asks that Manulife pay to the former policyholders in Barbados the same compensation paid to other policyholders when the insurer demutualised.

The suit claims that Manulife obtained approval for the sale of its Barbados interests by providing adequate information to the Supervisor of Insurance in Barbados.

In the past several meetings were held with Barbadian policyholders informing them of their rights in this issue. Harvey Strosberg, Queen’s Counsel in Ontario had told policyholders at one of the meetings that the issue would take years to wind up.

However, if successful policyholders will be compensated.
(JB)

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