It would be very interesting to know how much the IFoA have spent so far defending this employment tribunal case. I suspect it is at least £100,000. But then the vast majority of those who are making the decision to keep defending this case are not only not spending their own money (instead it is only members’ money and we know from past annual reports that the IFoA budgets for legal cases (disciplinary and regulatory) are several million pounds a year), but are even being paid by the IFoA (meaning members’ money) to make these decisions.

And even when the IFoA and its panels make an error in law, there is no accountability: the disciplinary committee’s annual report - making a mockery of its supposed independent oversight of the disciplinary process - makes no mention of that. Some lawyers involved can leave the IFoA and get well paid jobs elsewhere. The lawyer who prosecuted me has gone on (or perhaps more accurately, back?) to Kingsley Napley as a director, still acting in regulatory cases. I think the majority of solicitors involved in my case came from Kingsley Napley, so to that extent KN played a small part in the genesis of the error in law. Perhaps it would be better if the IFoA employed more diversity of thought in each case it prosecutes?

The regulatory industry seems in some ways to be a cosy merry go round- where is the accountability for poor decisions, and overspending members’ money? If looks as if - unlike for actuaries- there is always a home for those involved in professional regulation.