Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1097443
28.03.19 8 FOREIGN NEWS A spate of natural disasters pushed Lloyd's of London into an annual loss for the second year in a row, as it vowed to ad- dress reports of sexual harass- ment. e 331-year-old insurance market made a pre-tax loss of £1bn for 2018, following a loss of £2bn in 2017, which was its first loss in six years. Lloyd's paid out £19.7bn in claims last year when a num- ber of severe natural catastro- phes devastated homes and businesses around the world, including hurricanes Florence and Michael, Typhoon Jebi in Japan, as well as the Californian wildfires. However, after years of falling prices, renewal rates on insur- ance policies have picked up, rising 3.2%. Lloyd's has also re- moved £3bn of underperform- ing business from the market and is cutting costs. e results come a day after Lloyd's pledged to take a ze- ro-tolerance approach to tackle claims of sexual harassment. In a report by Bloomberg, one in- dustry insider labelled Lloyd's a "meat market". e shadow City minister, John Reynolds, de- scribed the market's culture as "institutionally sexist". Speaking on Wednesday when the results were announced, Lloyd's chairman, Bruce Carne- gie-Brown, a former JP Morgan banker, said he had witnessed "sporadic incidents" of sexu- al harassment over the years. He said the latest allegations showed "this is probably more widespread than we fully un- derstand. It is distressing that women in 2019 should be suf- fering harassment in the work- place. It is not acceptable". In response to the allegations, Lloyd's has threatened poten- tial lifetime bans for anyone found guilty of "inappropriate behaviour", on top of sanctions imposed by the company that employs that individual. If companies are found not to be doing enough, Lloyd's can sanction them by issuing fines or withdrawing their right to trade in the market, Carneg- ie-Brown said. Lloyd's will set up an inde- pendently run hotline, where inappropriate behaviour can be reported, and it has appointed two women to its nominations board. e firm said it was "Brex- it-ready", with its new Brussels subsidiary writing all Europe- an policies since January. e group, which began in 1688 as Edward Lloyd's coffee house, where merchants and agents met to arrange shipping insur- ance, is made up of 99 syndi- cates that provide insurance cover for anything from busi- nesses to footballers' legs. Inga Beale, an industry veter- an who became the insurance market's first female chief exec- utive in January 2014, left last October. Named the world's most powerful LGBT executive in 2015, she pushed for greater diversity and banned daytime drinking for Lloyd's employees. She also sought to modernise the market, where business is traditionally conducted face to face, and 40% is now done elec- tronically. ere is no market-wide drink- ing ban but Carnegie-Brown said Lloyd's would take action against anyone found under the influence of alcohol and could ban them from the market. One Under Lime, the pub in the un- dercroft of the Lloyd's building, is to be converted into a coffee house. Women were not allowed into the Lloyd's underwriting room until 1973, when Liliana Archi- bald became the first female broker there. Lloyd's of London makes £1bn loss as it vows to tackle sexual harassment claims The results come a day after Lloyd's of London pledged to take a zero-tolerance approach to tackle reports of sexual harassment Swedish bank's offices raided in money laundering probe SWEDISH authorities were raiding the headquarters of one of Sweden's largest banks on Wednesday as part of an investigation into whether Swedbank was con- nected to a massive money laundering scandal in the Baltic countries. Sweden's Economic Crime Authority said chief pros- ecutor omas Langrot is probing whether 15 of Swedbank's largest share- holders illegally received in- formation about the bank's connection to the money laundering scandal before Swedish television reported on the issue for the first time last month. Swedbank confirmed the raid at its headquarters in near Stockholm. "At this point of time, no individual or legal entity has been served suspicion of a crime," the bank said in a statement. "We will cooper- ate with the authorities." Swedish broadcaster SVT had reported last month that Swedbank customers had been able to funnel at least 40 billion kronor ($4.3 billion) between Swedbank and Danske Bank in Estonia. On Tuesday, SVT also reported that an internal Swedbank report identi- fied major breaches of an- ti-money laundering rules involving its business in Es- tonia. It said Swedbank had accepted customers who posed a high risk of money laundering and had "failed to report suspicious trans- actions and activities." e bank said the report was part of a wider external investigation that had been made available to authori- ties. Estonia has ordered Dan- ske Bank to shut its local subsidiary after the bank admitted massive amounts of money had been laun- dered. Shares in Swedbank dropped nearly 7 percent in midday trading after news of the raid. Swedbank's headquarters in Sundbyberg, Stockholm