Investors in long-delayed litigation against two Isle of Man-based insurance giants will have to wait at least another year before judgment is handed down.

Closing submissions in a £120m-plus compensation battle against Utmost (formerly Old Mutual /Quilter) and Friends Provident International (FPI) concluded in May 2024, following a seven-week trial at Douglas High Court.

But no judgment was ever handed down and since the trial, no fewer than 24 claimants have died.

The Acting Deemster who oversaw that first trial, James Corbett KC, resigned on grounds of ill health before getting to deliver his long-delayed decision.

A new Acting Deemster, Matthew Marsh, has been appointed to take over the case, with a remit to deliver judgment as soon as possible.

Following submissions from the claimants and defendants, Acting Deemster Marsh has set a timetable for a retrial.

It will mean judgment will be delayed another year as the insurers insisted on a further round of submissions and because the Utmost legal team are involved in another even bigger class action and are not available for six months.

The timetable for a retrial will see further written submissions to be filed by the claimants by June 18 next year, followed by further written submissions to be filed by the defendants by July 7.

There will be a hearing in front of the new Acting Deemster on July 20-22 followed by a second hearing in September 21-23.

Niall Coburn, principal of Coburn Corporate Intelligence, international investigation firm assisting in the management of the claim, said: ‘It has been decided by the new Deemster that the “retrial” on submissions will not be finalised until September 2027 making it unlikely to receive judgement before December 2027.

‘This means that the case will have been litigated for eight years making judicial determinations in the Isle of Man farcical.

‘We have brought these concerning issues to the attention of the British parliament.’

Dates for the judgment to be handed down after the first trial were set seven times but each deadline was missed. Acting Deemster Corbett KC resigned on the grounds of ill health on June 6 this year.

The claimants are primarily British pensioners, many of whom invested their life savings through life assurance ‘wrappers’ in a number of high-risk funds that later collapsed, leaving their investments worthless and often forcing them out of retirement or leaving them stranded abroad.

They are facing potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds in further legal costs relating to a retrial.

Advocate Jonathan Wild, representing both lead claimants, told last week’s case management hearing that there was no funding left after the first trial to cover the cost of a full retrial.

But lawyers for the defendants said that that some of the claimants were, on their own evidence, ‘substantially wealthy’ and it was suggested that each could provide £5,000 towards the cost of a retrial.