Amanda Stevens, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL), reports national journal of record The Times, is displeased with the FSA. At APIL’s annual dinner she accused the regulator not simply of having at least one blind eye but of deliberately turning it in an inappropriate direction.
She’s not happy with insurers either ‚ alleging they’ve been strong-arming motor accident victims into settling for low compensation. Citing an isolated anecdote involving “a woman” who was offered £1000 to settle immediately after an accident without involving lawyers, who declined this offer, and who ultimately won ten times the amount (plus costs!) thanks to Stevens’ firm, she said accident victims were being let down by “weak regulation of certain insurance activities.”
“It’s not OK,” she continued, “for the Financial Services Authority to turn a blind eye to high pressure tactics. These are not isolated anecdotes, but issues that trouble us day in, day out in our offices.” And surely no-one who has ever been troubled their office could fail to sympathise this view. Then, cranking up the pathos before an already visibly moved audience, she went on to characterise APIL as an organisation that puts people before the “pursuit of financial gain,” a pursuit, she said, which has led “so many in the City to the brink of collapse.”