Supreme Court approves Delta Life-Idra settlement
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Monday approved an amicable settlement agreement between the insurance regulator and a group of Delta Life Insurance Company shareholders.
According to the agreement, believed to be an exit route for the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (Idra), the regulator would withdraw the administrator from the pioneering private sector life insurer of the country it appointed in February 2021, suspending its board of directors.
Both the parties, Delta Life directors and the Idra, would opt out of their legal actions against each other, according to the settlement made under the supervision of the finance ministry.
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Delta's ousted directors and some new faces teamed up to sign an agreement with the insurance regulator.
According to the settlement, following the withdrawal of the administrator, the new board would take charge of Delta Life as soon as possible and hold annual general meetings of the publicly traded company.
The new board would include Delta's suspended directors Suraiya Rahman and Zeyad Rahman, former chief executive Adeeba Rahman, new directors Hafiz Ahmed Majumdar and Md Jonaid Safiq, Shakib Aziz and Chaklader Rezanul Alam.
Suspended board members were complaining that the then Idra chairman M Mosharraf Hossain asked them for bribes, and after being rejected, he suspended the board and appointed an administrator in Delta Life.
They filed over a dozen lawsuits against the regulator, and its chairman, while the Idra conducted a series of audits within the firm some findings of which were being questioned by the observers and the ousted board members.
Mosharraf, however, was forced to resign from his post earlier this year following anti-corruption actions against his crores of taka in undisclosed financial transactions.
Welcoming the amicable settlement following the joining of new top officials at the Idra, insurance industry observers are still questioning the lack of good governance in the sector as both the Idra and Delta directors made too many serious allegations against each other, many of which should not be overlooked even if they want to.
The new board is set to run the company and report the progress to the Idra periodically.
