3Sixty Life, the underwriter linked to the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), finally has a new curator after 14-months of legal wrangling with the Prudential Authority (PA).
The high court appointed Fagmeedah Petersen-Cook as the final curator of 3Sixty Life on February 21, according to a statement on Friday by the PA, the financial services regulator that falls under the SA Reserve Bank. Her appointment hopefully brings to an end a protracted legal dispute that began in December 2021 when the PA first had 3Sixty Life placed under provisional curatorship for failing to maintain legally required capital levels.
“We entered into a settlement with the PA,” 3Sixty Life’s acting CEO Khandani Msibi, told Business Day in a WhatsApp message. “It’s a curatorship to end curatorship.”
Petersen-Cook is a qualified actuary and a Fellow of the Actuarial Society of SA as well as its UK equivalent. She serves as a non-executive director for companies including Pepkor and Absa Financial Services (AFS). She has acted as insurance director on the boards of several companies and holds a Chartered Director designation from the Institute of Directors in SA.
The appointment of Petersen-Cook also means the end of the provisional curatorship of Yashoda Ram, the former head of actuarial services of BDO SA. Ram was initially appointed as provisional curator in December 2021 only for the PA to drop a bombshell in February 2022 when it applied to have her removed on the basis that her qualifications had been misrepresented.
That sparked of a series of ugly legal spats that ultimately saw Ram resign from BDO SA in April 2022 though she denied misrepresenting her qualifications. At the time BDO SA was providing curatorship services to the PA in the 3Sixty Life matter, however the firm is no longer involved in the process.
Despite Ram’s resignation from BDO SA she remained the provisional curator of 3Sixty Life as her appointment could only be revoked by a court, the same authority that appointed her. On September 30 2022 the Gauteng high court cancelled the appointment of Ram and appointed Tinashe Frank Mashoko of BDO Advisory Services in her place as part of a final curatorship order for 3Sixty Life.
However, the embattled underwriter immediately applied for leave to appeal against the final curatorship, resulting in the high court’s September 30 ruling being suspended by default.
3Sixty Life’s application for leave to appeal was heard by the high court on November 4 but was dismissed three days later with costs. Undeterred, 3Sixty Life applied for leave to appeal a day later, this time to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). Again, that resulted in the high court’s September 30 ruling being suspended, though the PA filed to oppose 3Sixty Life’s appeal application.
“The PA and the suspended directors of 3Sixty Life subsequently agreed that the protracted litigation was not in the best interests of the policyholders of 3Sixty Life,” the regulator said in its Friday statement.
Following discussions between the parties, 3Sixty Life withdrew its appeal to the SCA on February 2 2023, effectively making the high court’s September 30 curatorship order final. The PA also applied to the court to release BDO SA’s Mashoko from his appointment as final curator so that a new independent final curator could be named, resulting in the appointment of Petersen-Cook.
“Curatorship presents the most suitable and most effective mechanism to facilitate the orderly management of 3Sixty Life back to a position of financial soundness,” the PA said. “The PA will work together with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority and the curator to ensure 3Sixty Life’s policyholders continue to be properly protected during this process.”
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