Insurance
SMDF: A pointed question
Then perhaps the Law Society would treat its members with respect and convey those answers (or rebuff!) to the members before they come to vote on the SMDF bailout.
SMDF: Good Advice!
There are big problems for the Council in adopting this course of action: either their own legal advisor will appear to have been chosen for underhand reasons of chicanery or/and the Council will be deprived of the very best advice on the issues most affecting the SMDF and its members. Surely the SMDF and its advisors are the experts in that area?
SMDF; A signed Opinion?
In the same vein, is it not obvious that no solicitor induced to take “insurance” cover with SMDF can be said to be acting in the interests of the Law Society when he or she votes in the postal poll?
The SMDF letter
As for the directors of SMDF, there are two questions.
A) Do you accept responsibility for the mis-management of SMDF, resulting in its insolvency?
B) If you deny SMDF is (or will be) insolvent how do you think you can persuade a court to appoint a liquidator to a solvent company, as your letter seems to suggest?
SMDF: Plausible?
o, the evidence of implausibility in the Law Society narrative is this; there is no evidence of admission by the directors of SMDF of their presumed disgrace.
SMDF: Confidential?
urely the Law Society should immediately place the “confidential report” on its website so that its members might feel more like professional people rather than mushrooms in a cloche.
SMDF: Questions for the Law Society
Will the Society release to the public the legal advice it has received relating to its proposal to bailout the SMDF?
Can’t pay; won’t pay
n short, to repeat, currently the Law Society of Ireland has no power to lawfully compel the payment of the levy to make up the SMDF insolvency shortfall.
The SMDF debacle
That SMDF has failed is, of course, of great concern. It was promoted by the Law Society of Ireland. Its directors were, invariably, past Presidents of the Law Society. Arguably, the failure of the SMDF is a failure of the Law Society. But that is not to say that the Law Society’s members are responsible for that failure. The members had no method of seeking accountability for the activities of the SMDF or the Law Society’s failures relating to it. (Even the High Court is constrained here; the Law Society of Ireland is a corporate body, but a very unusual one; it is not subject to the provisions of the Companies Acts. Most of the jurisdiction of the High Court over corporate bodies is derived from those Acts).
Sean Quinn’s losses
We now know that the losses in Quinn Insurance Limited were on the UK insurance business and that much of those losses were on professional indemnity policies for UK solicitors.