Thanks. I agree that the IFoA should not be hiding this case, as I said in my post (and have said on https://www.reddit.com/r/ActuaryUK/), they could - and should in my view, publish the determination with the Respondent (the name of the member the case was against)'s name anonymised.
The little I know of this case has come from third parties (so may be incorrect or only partially correct) and is the following:
- Insurance ERM reported some details of this case (held I believe on 18 Jan 2021) and the one scheduled for early February 2021 which the IFoA abandoned shortly before the DTP was due to be held
- A few weeks (2 or 3?) before the 18 Jan DTP hearing, the Respondent was presented with a Schedule of Costs from the IFoA amounting to about £37,000, with a request that the Respondent supply full details of his assets and liabilities, including home, pension, earnings, other assets, mortgage etc, and a warning that if he didn't supply such details the DTP would assume under the guidance that he could afford to pay the full Schedule of Costs
- A witness whose evidence was to be relied on by the IFoA (Mark Stocker, a Fellow, very sadly died in January 2021 before the hearing - see here for an obituary). As is usual in disciplinary cases, the IFoA had Mr Stocker's evidence in writing (it would have been obtained well before the DTP stage, almost certainly during the preparation by the Case Manager and Investigation Manager of the Case Report, which is the document that - together with the Respondent's statement of defence to it - that I understand an Adjudication Panel or DTP use (in the case of a DTP, together with any oral representations made by witnesses, the Respondent, and the lawyer acting for the IFoA) at the hearing. The IFoA decided - perhaps unsurprisingly - to continue with the case despite Mr Stocker's death, since they had his evidence in writing.
- Notice of the DTP hearing of 18 Jan 2021 (and that of early Feb 2021) had, in line with normal practice and the Disciplinary Board's guidance on publications, been published on the IFoA's forthcoming hearings page for a few days/weeks beforehand.
- Due to the Covid19 situation, the DTP was held online.
- Unfortunately I didn't watch this online hearing (given what happened, I wish I had, in order to have first hand evidence of what happened).
- I've been told that, despite the DTP being advertised as public (in line with the IFoA's Disciplinary Scheme past practice and the Disciplinary Board's guidance), one or more journalists (possibly from ERM Insurance?) were prevented from attending, and one or more interested parties (possibly current or former IFoA members) were "thrown out" (possibly a la Handforth Parish Council, via the organiser of the online meeting revoking their access to the online meeting).
- I understand that the DTP relatively quickly found the Respondent had NOT committed misconduct
- As a result, the successful Respondent applied for his costs to be paid by the IFoA
- Very unusually, the DTP granted this, implying that it felt the IFoA had acted "negligently or improperly" in its conduct of the case.
As of today (13 March 2021), so almost two months after the 18 January DTP hearing, no details at all have been published on the IFoA's Determinations page. I understand (from an email received from the IFoA during correspondence about the disciplinary case it is bringing against me, in answer to a question I asked as to why the Determination of 18 Jan had not yet been published) that the Respondent had been asked whether they wished the Determination to be published and had said that they did not wish it to be published.
But as I pointed out in my blog post, that is not what the Disciplinary Board's publication guidance says. What would be in line with the guidance in my view would be for the determination to be published with the Respondent's name anonymised, as determinations routinely are with regard to the names of third parties (as for example they would have been with regard to Mr Stocker's witness statement).
That is all I know at the moment about the 18 January case. I understand that in the early February case (which the IFoA withdrew very shortly before it was due to be held, ostensibly because it was similar in many ways and hence the DTP was likely to find against the IFoA), the IFoA had sent a Schedule of Costs that was even higher (£52,000). Because the case was abandoned, the DTP didn't have an opportunity to decide either on the case or on costs. I understand that despite being requested to do so by the Respondent in the February case, the IFoA has refused to reimburse the Respondent's costs. If the cases really are very similar, then that does not seem right to me, especially given the stress and shock the Respondent must have felt on receiving that extremely high demand for potential costs.
I think more information should come out about the IFoA's behaviour in both cases. It seems very wrong of the IFoA to demand full disclosure from members of anything that might bring the profession of actuary into disrepute, yet at the same time hide behaviour that arguably brings it (the IFoA), and by extension professional bodies, into disrepute.
I left the IFoA almost 6 months ago, but am still tied to it because of the Disciplinary Scheme. Despite my having left at the end of September 2020, I received an email asking me to fill in a volunteer satisfaction survey. Having received it, I decided to complete it, especially as I was a volunteer from July 2012 to September 2020 (and had been before from time to time). This episode, together with the way the IFoA brought its case against me, has made me lose faith in the value of being a member of a professional body, and I said so in my response to the survey: I felt I could no longer trust the IFoA.
Last edited: Mar 13, 2021
