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Lloyds of London, the insurance organisation, has reported losses for 1991, and Names are expected to pay losses of 1.35 billion pounds sterling for 1989. Many Names have left the syndicate and will be obliged to sell assets to meet claims. Lloyds of London wishes that the Lloyds Council will implement recommendations proposed by its taskforce which include altering the principle of unlimited liability and reviewing the system of governance.

From Mr Peter Martin. Sir, As a victim of the hopeless attack by Equitable Life on its former directors, of whom I was one, I sympathise with the observations of [...]

From Mr Peter Martin. Sir, Your correspondent Prof Avinash Persaud (Letters, March 11) misses, with respect, the whole point about oversight. It is not that non-executive directors are or may [...]

July 20is the third anniversaryof the decision of the House of Lords in the Equitable Life v Hyman case that precipitated a disaster in the affairs of the society. The [...]

Ayear ago, I was a calm observer of the dotcom bubble. Since then, I have been immersed in the web frenzy, helping to edit the FT's websites. So the thoughts [...]

It is time for the European telecommunications industry to think the unthinkable and abandon 3G - third-generation mobile telephony. And that's just one of the unthinkable thoughts that chief executives [...]

The malaise that has overcome business life this summer has moved from a crisis of trust to a crisis of faith. This week's market developments - taking the Dow Jones [...]

Call it the revenge of the nerds. Track down those long-discarded supplies of drip-dry shirts. Toss aside the tasselled loafers. After years of getting no social or sartorial respect, the [...]

The crisis of American corporate responsibility is not the 'moral cancer' described last week by Peter Peterson, the former US Commerce secretary. Instead, it is something more practical - and [...]

This week, talking on the phone to a friend in New York, I ventured a little joke about the latest corporate scandals, expressing mild admiration for the chutzpah of one [...]

Every time you send an internal e-mail, you are putting your company at risk. That is the message of the guilty verdict against Andersen, Enron's auditor, for impeding justice. It [...]

Warning: you may find the following paragraph unbearably pathetic. But, in the interests of full disclosure, I'm going to tell you anyway. Washing up at the sink last week, I [...]

Stand by for the battle of the platforms. This will be the characteristic 21st-century business struggle, between competitors who attempt to dominate a crucial part of an industry's value chain, [...]

Something interesting is happening in the computer industry: the rehabilitation of the phrase 'legacy software'. It used to be one of those phrases uttered only with a bitter laugh. Those [...]

Habit. Boredom. These are the two opposing forces that shape the market for mature consumer goods. They underlie the criticisms of South African Breweries' deal to buy Miller Brewing from [...]

The football World Cup that starts in South Korea and Japan this week will remind us that sport is a worldwide obsession. Ever since professional sports hit their stride in [...]

In an article* in Monday's FT, Iset out some of the conflicts of interests that enmesh the big investment banks. On Tuesday, Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney-general, agreed with [...]

Two years after the technology boom went bust, the recriminations are still in full swing. Eliot Spitzer, New York attorney-general, is pursuing Merrill Lynch and other securities firms. Harvey Pitt, [...]

Yesterday's annual general meeting of Vivendi Universal was part of the slow-motion trial of Jean-Marie Messier, the company's chairman and chief executive, for offences against French corporate etiquette. The indictment [...]

The mobile phone business is a giant free business-school education for everyone else. It is only 19 years old but it has managed to combine staggering success and remarkable disasters. [...]

We have seen it in a thousand gangster movies. Scene: the Little Italy of an anonymous big city. A family restaurateur has a visit from a sharp-suited young man who [...]

Dear Allan Leighton, Congratulations on your appointment to a permanent job as chairman of Consignia. There will be no shortage of unsolicited warnings about the risks of failure in turning [...]

O! I have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. - Othello Shakespeare was right. Andersen's continuing implosion shows that once [...]

Prof Geert Hofstede's research on cultural values, referred to in Peter Martin's column on March 14, was based on surveys from International Business Machines. The reference to Shell was [...]

It was a nasty day in Dusseldorf, 20 years ago. I had jet lag and a cold and was feeling miserable. The last thing I wanted to do was listen [...]

Warren Buffett's annual letter to the shareholders of his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, often contains rueful admissions of mistakes. Like his equally traditional confession of baseball incompetence, these are intended, [...]

Welcome back. It's time for our regular Top Ten list. Tonight: the Top Ten Signs that the Lunatics are Taking Over the Corporate Asylum. 10. The New York Times reports [...]

What is the difference between outstanding companies and average ones in the same industry? Intensive research by a team of business school academics has come to the conclusion that outstanding [...]

Here is the magic word for bankers and financial markets: no. It is a word we rarely heard from them during the 10-year global expansion that ended a year ago. [...]

AN important new creative business - delivering content to wireless handheld devices - is starting to take shape. But before it does there is much work to be done. The [...]

Whenever a rogue trader surfaces, as at Allied Irish Banks' US subsidiary, there is much sober murmuring about how banks need tighter controls. But the simplest solution to trading losses [...]

Warning signs that suggest a patient may not be suitable for cosmetic surgery include: expectations of an appearance enhanced beyond possibility; unrealistic expectations of lifestyle/ career/relationship effects; an unwillingness to [...]

The US economic expansion that ended in March 2001 lasted exactly 10 years, the longest upswing since modern economic records began in 1854. It would not have been surprising, therefore, [...]

Giving a business presentation has just become more challenging. Look at that colleague at the end of the table, scribbling hieroglyphics feverishly into a Palm hand-held computer. Is he noting [...]

At its heart, business is a gamble. The peasant farmer who plants a crop to sell next year and the semiconductor boss who commits his company to a Dollars 2bn [...]

Nobody likes getting unsolicited mail that says 'you've messed up'. But companies had better get used to the experience. Shareholders are increasingly giving companies the benefit of their opinion and [...]

What is the right thing to do? You would be forgiven for thinking, based on a couple of recent cases, that this simple question is not one that crosses an [...]

I'm pleased to announce the opening of a new media frontier: your fridge. Last week both Apple and Microsoft declared their ambitions to play the central role in the home [...]

The end of the US recession is in sight. Who says? Well, Donald Evans, US secretary of commerce, for one: 'We're probably a little closer to the end (of the [...]

When they met, in the mid-1980s, it looked like a perfect match. Enron, the Houston gas pipeline company, was turning itself into a energy trading business, combining technology and an [...]