ABI back in IP good books

Peter Le Beau, managing director of Le Beau Visage and the co-founder of the IP Task Force, said he believed the ABI was equally committed to supporting IP as well as CI.

Regarding whether the ABI preferred one product, Le Beau said: "I don't know if that is a deliberate plan. The IP Task Force has welcomed the ABI to several of its meetings, and Nick Kirwan has attended. I think the ABI is as committed to supporting IP along with CI, and there should be no reason why not."

He added: "We have an open relationship with the ABI and they are supportive of what the IP Task Force does."

Nick Kirwan, chairman of the ABI, said the body was ruling out an investigation into IP because it could not identify areas of consumer detriment and without this, any probing would consequently fall foul of anti-competition laws.

He said: "We don't have the permission of the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority to look at IP."

Kirwan added the ABI had looked briefly at investigating the product: "We've done some work on looking at whether or not there is consumer detriment. When you make a case to the regulators, you have to start with why consumers are losing out and you have to be able to say and quantify that it is consumer detriment."

He said: "With IP, we've had a number of discussions around consumer detriment and how you would quantify that and the bottom line is that so far it has been difficult to identify the real cause."

Kirwan said the ABI was now looking at total permanent disability and that it would be updating the Statement of Best Practice for CI next year.

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