Select Committee of Tynwald on Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (Isle of Man) Limited Third (Final) Report 2010-2011
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PP 113/11 SELECT COMMITTEE OF TYNWALD ON KAUPTHING SINGER AND FRIEDLANDER (ISLE OF MAN) LIMITED THIRD (FINAL) REPORT 2010-2011 THIRD (FINAL) REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF TYNWALD ON KAUPTHING SINGER AND FRIEDLANDER (ISLE OF MAN) LIMITED 2010-2011 That Tynwald appoints a Committee of three Members with powers to take written and oral evidence pursuant to sections 3 and 4 of the Tynwald Proceedings Act 1876, as amended, to investigate and report on - (1) the cause of the collapse of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (IoM) Limited; (2) the role of the Financial Supervision Commission in ensuring the proper management of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (toM) Limited to protect depositors' funds; (3) the credibility of the Depositors' Compensation Scheme; and (4) any other relevant matter and report back by the March 2010 sitting of this Honourable Court. The powers, privileges and immunities relating to the work of a committee of Tynwald are those conferred by sections 3 and 4 of the Tynwald Proceedings Act 1876, sections 1 to 4 of the Privileges of Tynwald (Publications) Act 1973 and sections 2 to 4 of the Tynwald Proceedings Act 1984. Committee Membership Mr Juan Watterson MHK (Rushee) (Chairman) Mr John Houghton MHK (Douglas North) Mr Alan Crowe MLC Copies of this Report may be obtained from the Tynwald Library, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas IM1 3PW (Tel 01624 685520, Fax 01624 685522) or may be consulted at www.tynwald.org .im All correspondence with regard to this Report should be addressed to the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas IM1 3PW. Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION 1 THE INQUIRY 1 II. EVENTS AFTER 8TH OCTOBER 2008 5 BACKGROUND 5 CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS - AFTER BrIl OCTOBER 2008 TO DATE 5 ACTIONS OF THE ISLE OF MAN AUTHORITIES 11 Actions of the Treasury 22 Actions of the Financial Supervision Commission 13 Conclusion 14 ALTERNATIVES FOR ADMINISTERING THE ASSETS OF KSF (IoM) BANK 14 SCHEME OF ARRANGEMENT 15 Conclusion 23 COMMUNICATION WITH DEPOSITORS 25 EARLY PAYMENT SCHEME 30 DAG LOANS TRUST 32 LIKELY OUTTURN FOR REPAYMENT 34 CONCLUSION 36 III. THE DEPOSITORS' COMPENSATION SCHEME 37 DESCRIPTION OF THE SCHEME 37 HISTORY 38 REVIEW OF THE 2008 DEPOSITORS' COMPENSATION SCHEME 41 HOW IT WORKS: SCOPE; WHO CONTRIBUTES; WHEN IT OPERATES 43 OTHER JURISDICTIONS 46 CREDIBILITY OF THE DEPOSITORS' COMPENSATION SCHEME 47 i Level of funding available 47 ii Competitor jurisdictions 49 iii Union with other Schemes 49 Conclusion 50 FINANCIAL SUPERVISION COMMISSION AND THE BANKING MODEL 51 IV CONCLUSIONS 52 IV. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (FROM BOTH REPORTS) 54 FIRST REPORT 54 Conclusions 54 Recommendations 56 FINAL REPORT 58 Conclusions 58 Recommendations 64 ORAL EVIDENCE 15th November 2010 67 3rd December 2010 85 24th December 2010 101 11th April 2011 141 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Letter to the Chairman of the Committee from the Office of The Treasury Minister dated 21st September 2010 159 APPENDIX 1 - Annex: Lines of Communication 175 APPENDIX 2: Response of Mark Shimmin, Chief Financial Officer of the Treasury to the questions posed by Mr Roger Phillips, Clerk of Tynwald, in an email dated 10th December 2010 regarding KSF evidence 177 APPENDIX 3: Letter to the Chairman of the Committee from John Aspden, Chief Executive of the Financial Supervision Commission, dated 22nd September 2010 181 APPENDIX 4: Letter to the Chairman of the Committee from Mr John Coyle, President of the Isle of Man Bankers Association, dated 20th September 2010 189 APPENDIX 5: Letter to the Chairman of the Committee from P Dearden, Hospice Care, dated 1st September 2010 193 APPENDIX 6: Memorandum submitted to the Tynwald Select Committee in relation to events following the collapse of Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander (IOM) Ltd (KSFIOM) on behalf of Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander Isle of Man Depositors Action Group dated September 2010 197 APPENDIX 7: First (interim) Report of the Select Committee on Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander (Isle of Man) Limited - Response of the KSFIOM Depositors Action Group 225 APPENDIX 8: KSF Scheme of Arrangement - Summary of Qualitative Issues submitted by the KSFIOM Depositors Action Group 233 APPENDIX 9: KSFIOM Depositors Action Group - Letter to Hon Anne Craine MHK dated 7th April 2011 239 APPENDIX 10: Proposal for a Loan Trust Scheme for KSFIOM Depositors by KSFIOM Depositors Action Group 243 APPENDIX 11: Letter to the Committee from JD Hollis, Chairman of the Manx Insurance Association 249 To: The Hon Noel Q Cringle MLC, President of Tynwald, and the Hon Council and Keys in Tynwald assembled THIRD (FINAL) REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF TYNWALD ON KAUPTHING SINGER AND FRIEDLANDER (ISLE OF MAN) LIMITED 2010-2011 I. INTRODUCTION The inquiry 1. The remit of the Select Committee is as follows: That Tynwald appoints a Committee of three Members with powers to take written and oral evidence pursuant to sections 3 and 4 of the Tynwald Proceedings Act 1876, as amended, to investigate and report on - (1) the cause of the collapse of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (IoM) Limited; (2) the role of the Financial Supervision Commission in ensuring the proper management of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (IoM) Limited to protect depositors' funds; (3) the credibility of the Depositors' Compensation Scheme; and (4) any other relevant matter and report back by the March 2010 sitting of this Honourable Court. The Members first met on 2211d July 2009. 2. As reported previously, the deadline of March 2010 was not practicable for a complete report in relation to the issues set out in our remit if we were to do full justice to the importance of the subject matter of our enquiries. In particular, we felt that we owed it to the depositors to carry out as full and exhaustive enquiries as possible. 3. We agreed that our remit fell into two parts: the first part related to the causes of the bank's collapse and the connected role of the Financial Supervision Commission (paragraphs 1 and 2 of the remit); the second part related to the credibility of the Depositors' Compensation Scheme and related issues. 4. Our strategy was therefore to divide the remit in two: • examination of events leading up to 8th October 2008, including an identification of the role played by the Financial Supervision Commission and the directors in the collapse; and • examination of the credibility of the Depositors Compensation Scheme including events after Stn October. 5. The First Interim Report, which we agreed in June 2010, covered the first part of our inquiry. It dealt with the events leading up to the moment of collapse of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander (IoM) Limited (KSF (loM)). 6. The Court debated the Report at its July sitting and agreed: That the Report of the Select Committee on Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander (Isle of Man) Limited be received and that the Treasury consider and report to Tynwald no later than December 2010 in relation to the implementation of the recommendations contained within the Report. 7 The Treasury duly laid a Report before Tynwald in December 2010 which observed the letter of the resolution agreed in July. However, because the Treasury Report contained no recommendations and was only laid before the Court it was not open for debate. Within the report produced by Treasury, there was no clear endorsement or rejection of the Committee's findings and recommendations. In some cases, the Treasury have tried to appear as supporting recommendations without advocating any action to redress the 2 concerns raised (e.g. Recommendation 9). Furthermore, the Treasury Report appears to envision long time horizons for the completion of some of the recommendations which the Committee felt it would be beneficial to the Island's reputation to have resolved sooner rather than later. In order to allow the Court to consider the Conclusions and Recommendations of the Committee in full in the light of the Treasury Report, we re-iterated our Conclusions and Recommendations in our Second (Interim) Report. After debate, consideration of all the matters raised in the Report and in the Treasury response was deferred until the Committee's final Report. For the convenience of the Court, we include all our previous conclusions and recommendations in this Report. 8. The second part of our inquiry is in two parts. The first part deals with events after 8th October including decisions made about whether to put the bank into liquidation (and the impact of such decisions) or to seek alternative methods of protecting the interests of depositors and potentially enhancing returns or the speed of recovery; the second part of the Report examines the Depositors' Compensation Scheme and in particular its credibility and any other matters. 9. As we reported before, after starting this inquiry Mr Eddie Lowey MLC was appointed to the Treasury Department as a political member. He indicated that it would not be appropriate for him to continue with the second part of this inquiry, which would focus more closely on the actions taken by the Isle of Man authorities and in particular by the Isle of Man Treasury. With considerable regret, we accepted that this was correct and therefore we proposed that Tynwald replace him with another member for the Committee. In the event, Mr Alan Crowe MLC was nominated to the Committee. 10. In this part of the inquiry, the Committee asked the following people and organisations for written evidence in advance of taking oral evidence: • Treasury • Financial Supervision Commission a Association of Licensed Bankers • Life Companies (Manx Insurance Association) • Isle of Man Hospice ▪ The liquidators • Depositors groups (DAG; PPDG). 3 11. Over the course of four public hearings the Committee took oral evidence from: e Hon Allan Bell MHK, as former Treasury Minister, with Mr Mark Shimmin, Chief Financial Officer.