In my view, there are some significant failings in the Case Report prepared by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in its disciplinary case against me. These include the following:
Case Manager and Investigation Actuary: violation of neutrality/impartiality
The Case Manager/Investigation Actuary are supposed to be “neutral & impartial” during the investigation stage (up to and including the Adjudication Panel stage, i.e. before a case goes – it it does -before a Disciplinary Tribunal Panel). From page 3 of the relevant document “Information for Members facing an allegation under the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Disciplinary and Capacity for Membership Schemes”, dated July 2020 (the bold emphasis is mine):
The IFoA allocate a Case Manager to investigate each allegation. Case Managers are members of our staff. During the investigation stage they are neutral and impartial. Their role is to manage the investigation and to gather relevant information for consideration and evaluation before an Adjudication Panel and/or Disciplinary Panel hearing. Once they are appointed you will be given their name and contact details. They will be your main contact throughout the investigation.
But they prejudge the outcome by their wording in several places in the Case Report.
Failure to investigate or include facts inconvenient to the IFoA’s case
In several areas, the IFoA failed to investigate or include facts which cast doubt on their case. For example, for several of the tweets they object to, they say “The tweet is accompanied by an edited screenshot of what appears to be an excerpt from an Islamic religious text.”
I had provided direct links to the Islamic religious texts in most of those tweets: why didn’t the IFoA investigate whether (as I claim) those texts are genuine, officially approved Islamic texts? Why use the prejudicial “edited screenshot” (which might be taken to imply that I had somehow edited the text? There was no editing , (in the sense of changing the meaning or context), merely highlighting of the relevant parts of the text, and that the text was classified as “Authentic“.
There are several other areas in which the investigation didn’t look very far (despite having taken almost 8 months), and where looking further shows information undermining the IFoA’s case. Similarly, the Case Report ignores several facts which support my case and undermine the IFoA’s case, yet which I had drawn attention to in my initial responses to the allegations.
Yet more questions for the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries to answer
I shall have more to say on this in due course. But this raises yet more questions about the way the IFoA has been operating.
The IFoA claims that it acts fairly and ethically, including treating its members fairly (even when they are facing allegations under the disciplinary scheme). Indeed, it has a duty to act with fairness, under Paragraph 1.2 of its Disciplinary and Capacity for Membership Schemes (the current rules, dated 1 Feb 2018):
In the interpretation and operation of these Schemes regard shall be had to the principles of natural justice and procedural fairness and applicable articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
It also has a duty to act in the public interest because of its Royal Charter. Surely that must include investigating things fairly.
I don’t think it can be said to have done so, from the Case Report that has been prepared, because of the failings mentioned above, and others.
This is the first time I have seen a Case Report. The problems I have noted within it raise the following new questions for the IFoA:
Have there been similar failings in other cases?
Are there similar failings in cases which are currently pending?
Has the Disciplinary Board’s oversight been adequate? What about the oversight by the Chair of the Pool of Investigation Actuaries, who is stated to have reviewed the Case Report?
Does the operation of the IFoA’s Disciplinary Scheme in this way really enhance the reputation of the actuaries that the IFoA is meant to not just regulate, but support, and from which it takes hefty annual membership fees (over £700 for Fellows)?
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