Mark Langford wasn't playing golf when TAG went bust. It was the day before. Elliot Lane reports
One of life's ironies made the news last week. The Accident Group (TAG) was set up to assist the less fortunate who had suffered terrible misfortune and needed empowerment to fight the system.
Last week a group of workers who had suffered terrible misfortune decided to get on a plane to Marbella, Spain ready to seek compensation and use people power to fight injustice. The thing is they were all ex-employees of TAG.
This delegation, incensed by the pictures of their erstwhile ex-boss Mark Langford sunning himself on his £2.5m yacht, are hoping to receive at least their final month's salary. In fact they want Langford to pay the 2,500 TAG workers left out of pocket from the coffers of his own estimated £40m fortune.
Like the rest of the industry they also want answers. In particular, how much did Langford and his fellow directors know about the state of the company before its collapse in May?
The man himself is very unhappy. It seems many national newspaper business editors and journalists have received mealy-mouthed letters of complaint over the past weeks. Langford feels he has been judged unfairly. Many reports suggested he was on the golf course on the day
TAG went bust. This was totally untrue.
He was in fact on the golf course the previous afternoon, his lawyers would like to point out.
TAG's administrator has yet to publish its findings. Whether Langford is to blame or not will be decided then. But what the insurance industry needs to do is show continued willingness to enforce corporate governance rules within its boardrooms.
