1. "Never trust a Frenchman in love, and never trust an Englishman in business."
(Baron Alain de la Cam, 1965, to Elizabeth Luessenhop, who became a Lloyd's "Name" in 1983)2. "We have no doubt that Lloyd's would be best served by a properly conducted system of self-regulation."
(Former High Court judge Sir Henry Fisher, Fisher Report, May 1980)3. "If God had not meant for them to be sheared, he would not have made them sheep."
(Robert Hiscox, Deputy Chairman of Lloyd's, to John Rew in 1991.)4. "A very few clients have probably very little exposure."
(A.M. Blake-- to his syndicate partners, about their Names and their exposure to asbestos claims, after visiting the New York insurance market in 1982.)5. "I have never used the word conspiracy, but what I do say is that information which was privy to a handful of people at the very top of Lloyd's was not properly disseminated."
(John Donner, Chairman, Donner Underwriting Agencies, 1984)6. "These were not frauds on Lloyd's, they were frauds by insiders at Lloyd's on their own members."
(Ian Hay Davison, 1st chief executive at Lloyd's, 1982-1985)7. ". . . neither Lloyd's nor Sturge disclosed important information available to Lloyd's insiders, about asbestos and pollution risks and the "loading" of outside syndicates, . ."
(Leslie v. Lloyd's, U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey, August 1995)8. "If any reasonable outside Name had known what insiders at Lloyd's knew in the summer of 1986, that Name most certainly would have preferred to terminate or suspend his or her underwriting activity at Lloyd's."
(Leslie v. Lloyd's, U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey, August 1995)9. ". . . the short answer is clearly that there have been instances of bad faith and fraud at Lloyd's."
(Ron Sandler, Chief Executive at Lloyd's, December 1995)10. "It is quite absurd to pretend that any realistic figure, let alone a true and fair figure, can be put on the premiums for an RITC at the end of thirty-six months on most accounts."
(Robert Kiln, underwriter at Lloyd's, who placed an RITC contract with Outhwaite in 1982)11. "We are being asked to pay losses on policies written before we were born, [and] to set up reserves to pay claims which will arise after we are dead."
(John Rew)
12. "Surely there is no doubt as to the reasonable answer to the question: 'Should I pay or not?'"
(John Rew)13. "At the latest count, 82% of the Names were external members who were in fact nothing other than passive investors in the syndicates in which they participated."
(Ian Hay Davison, 1st chief executive at Lloyd's 1982-1985, in his book 'A View of the Room', p.28.)14. ". . .English law is inadequate to prospectively deter British issuers from exploiting American investors through inadequate disclosure."
(US District Judge Robert E. Payne, Allen v. Lloyd's, Memorandum Opinion, Aug 23, 1996, p. 51, pph. 2.)15. ". . .the entire R&R document contains so many other disclaimers that reliance on anything in the documents could be asserted to be unreasonable."
(US District Judge Robert E. Payne, Allen v. Lloyd's, Memorandum Opinion, Aug 23, 1996, p. 74, ftnt. 15.)16. "Underwriters and brokers may have taken money, and ultimately paid the price for doing so, but in each case an accountant planned the arrangements and failed to warn his principal of the dangers of what they were doing."
(Ian Hay Davison, 1st CEO at Lloyd's 1982-1985, 'A View of the Room', p. 5.)17. "The scarcest resource in our business nowadays is not capital, as it once was. It is talent."
(Max Taylor, Lloyd's Chairman, 'One Lime Street', June 1999, p.17)18. "The immorality of Lloyd's will cause it to implode."
(Jack Shettle, Chairman, American Names Association.)19. "Lloyd's crowning achievement was to talk Parliament into granting them a complete laissez-faire absence of regulation, the ideal medium in which to grow a culture of fraud. Every kind of knavery, scam, and swindle was tolerated, and the culture flourished as more and more of Lloyd's insiders gave free rein to their own greed.
(Jeff Peterson, Executive Director, American Names Association.)20. "The day the British Parliament can pass laws that strip American citizens of their Constitutional rights will mark the beginning of the end of this great Republic."
(Alexander Hamilton)21. "I resigned my position at Lloyd's because the power structure of the corporation was not adequate to maintain and continue the reforms that would be needed before the Names could get a fair deal."
(Ian Hay Davison, concluding paragraph of 'A View of the Room', p. 204, published 1987.)22. "We weren't good enough to join until they needed "sucker money"."
(US Name Barbara Lyons.)23. "In years to come, after the business and legal communities have fathomed the enormity of Lloyd's fraudulent activities, pyramid investment scams will be known as 'Lloyd's Schemes' instead of 'Ponzi Schemes'."
(Jeffrey C. Peterson, Executive Director, American Names Assoc.)24. "The available English remedies are not adequate substitutes for the firm shields and finely honed swords provided by American securities law."
(Richards v Lloyd's, US Circ. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, March 6, 1997)25. "Lloyd's is a business corporation so powerful that it has obtained from the British legislature substantial immunities."
(Richards v Lloyd's, US Circ. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, March 6, 1997)26. "A plain, speedy and adequate remedy for the wrongs alleged by the plaintiffs is not shown to exist in Britain."
(Richards v Lloyd's, US Circ. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, March 6, 1997)27. "Lloyd's of London. . . one of the most serious and far-reaching insurance frauds of record anywhere."
(Judge Robert Payne, Allen v. Lloyd's, US District Court, Dist. of Va., Richmond Division, Aug. 23, 1996)28. ". . . if the gentlemen at Lloyd's were "East Enders" dealing in used cars, they would have been behind bars now for fraud, misrepresentation of assets and trading while insolvent."
(The Honorable Diane Abbot, Member, UK Parliament and Treasury Select Committee Investigating. . . Lloyd's of London)29. "All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put the myth of Lloyd's of London back together again."
(Elizabeth Bencsics, American Name, quoted in Time Magazine, Feb. 21, 2001)30. "The only area in which Lloyd's remains preeminent is in their ability to paint rosy pictures with red ink (more than $25 billion in net losses reported since 1990, $12 billion of which occurred after their 1996 reorganization)."
(Jeffrey C. Peterson, Executive Director, American Names Assoc.)31. "If Lloyd's were to cease writing coverage in the U.S. tomorrow, the void left in the insurance marketplace would be the same size as the hole left in a glass of water after an inserted finger is removed."
(Bob Westin, management consultant and President of Victus Inc.)32. "Lloyd's must have insured the cargo that went overboard at the Boston Tea Party-- and they're still pissed about it."
(US research reporter Alan James)