The High Court has upheld sweeping regulatory action by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) by formally cancelling the licence of Equity Insurance Company Limited, the embattled general insurer that had brought a court injunction challenging revocation of its licence.
Equity Insurance Company Limited — a 27-year-old Lower Collymore Rock firm — had filed a 205-page claim in court late last year, asking for a judicial review of the FSC’s actions. The regulator had prohibited the company from writing any new business after last December 31, directed it to reform its governance and control structure, revoked its licence, and taken control of its operations through the appointment of a restructuring manager.
That restructuring expert — Craig Waterman of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — has since confirmed an initial assessment by the commission that Equity committed serious breaches of domestic insurance laws and regulations and international best practice.
The insurance company had also asked the court to grant an injunction to stop the FSC from pursuing these decisions and directives against it.
But, on hearing the application from Equity, the High Court not only rejected its request for an injunction to stop or stay the enforcement actions of the regulator; it also reaffirmed the FSC’s decision to cancel the insurer’s licence.
In its court filing, Equity had accused the regulator of making a predetermined decision to revoke its licence without due process, based on a thread of email messages.
The applicant also told the court in its claim that the commission had reneged on an agreement worked out by finance minister Ryan Straughn during a meeting of the parties, to give Equity 90 days within which to “put its house in order”.
Describing the “minister’s plan” as reasonable, the insurer said it “immediately initiated a remediation plan tailored to the draft examination report findings and prioritised remediation steps according to the 90-day horizon communicated by the minister”.
“The applicant immediately engaged with consultants/advisers and allocated capital and management time to address the matters identified in the draft examination report within the ninety-day window given by the minister, which was communicated to the respondent,” the insurer stated in its court document.
“The respondent did not, before taking enforcement action, indicate that the minister’s plan was unreasonable or unacceptable to the respondent. The applicant states that the minister’s plan was a reasonable response to the matters identified in the draft examination report.”
Equity said the published actions of the FSC had caused irreparable damage to its reputation and had asked the court to award it exemplary damages which it contended were “necessary to punish and deter such misuse of regulatory power and to vindicate the rule of law in administrative decision-making”.
It also recalled a letter dated May 28, 2025 addressed to the finance minister in which it expressed its commitment to addressing the matters raised in the draft examination report to ensure full compliance.
The letter added that “the applicant was [also] looking forward to demonstrating the applicant’s progress (in remediating the matters referred to in the draft examination report) in the coming weeks”.
That final examination report found deficiencies which “remain unaddressed, with additional issues in governance, operational risk and internal controls”, according to the claim.
The court document also cited the report as saying that “the applicant is in breach of international best practices, including the Insurance Core Principles on Corporate Governance and Risk Management”, and that “the applicant’s governance structure is weak, with failures in compliance with respondent’s guidelines and inadequate board direction”.
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