Providenciales, 12 Jan 2015 – There was no government or private sector bail-out plan supplied as an alternative to ending British Atlantic Financial Services Ltd operating in the Turks and Caicos Islands and on Friday the Chief Justice ruled that the company be liquidated. Around 2,600 policy holders will now have to wait and see what returns they get on the dollar for their near three decades of saving with BAFSL in some cases. The financial institution, reportedly millions of dollars in the hole, had been in the hand of provisional liquidators PriceWaterHouseCoopers since last month so this decision was not a huge surprise to some of the policy holders to whom we spoke.
It is still unclear why government never moved to rescue the institution when Premier Rufus Ewing, in a called press conference spoke passionately about the handling of the case by the Financial Services Commission managing director, Kevin Higgins even calling for the decisions made surrounding the matter to be investigated and the Premier made an appeal to the Supreme Court to be considerate of the case and the Premier pledged that his government would do its best to bail out. A first step in that plan was revealed by Hon Dr. Rufus Ewing as meeting with the Opposition. That first step never happened. Another hearing in the case of BAFSL, which also got slammed in social media for what some residents called outrageous salaries and lack of information flowing to stakeholders is set for February 28, 2015.
