Former CBL Corporation MD Peter Harris has called for a fresh inquiry into the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s (RBNZ) handling of investigations that led to the group being placed into liquidation.

Mr Harris says an RBNZ-commissioned report released yesterday fails to answer a number of questions around disputed issues and doesn’t address why CBL was not given time to present and work through an agreed solution.

“To actually understand the motivations and dynamics around these questions a proper, independent inquiry is needed,” he says in a statement.

“It needs to be broadly based, with access to information and perspective from all relevant parties – even more so given the review’s findings about the RBNZ’s lack of resources and insurance experience.”

Mr Harris says the RBNZ report reflects interviews and inputs from those within the regulator and “some of the criticisms of CBL are based on undefended and unproven allegations and are completely rejected”.

“As a consequence of these and other flaws, in our view the review falls dramatically short of being a document that would provide confidence to the public and international financial community that the regulation of NZ’s insurance market is in capable hands,” he said.

CBL Insurance Ltd was placed into interim liquidation by the New Zealand High Court in February last year on the application of the RBNZ, and went into full liquidation in November.

The court in May also approved liquidation of parent company CBL Corporation, which listed in 2015 and which had a market capitalisation of around $NZ750 million ($715 million) at the time of its suspension from New Zealand’s stock exchange.

Mr Harris has accused the RBNZ of effectively destroying a company that was commercially viable.

The report by actuary and former Australian Prudential Regulation Authority member John Trowbridge and QC Mary Scholtens focuses on supervisory shortcomings in the 2014-16 period and says early doubts about CBL should have been taken up with a greater sense of urgency and acted upon as early and decisively as possible.

But it found the bank acted strongly from 2017 when alarms were raised over Gibraltar-based Elite Insurance, which wrote most of CBL’s European business, leading to the liquidation.

“During this period the bank acted firmly and decisively and, in our view, properly within its powers,” it says.

Challenges highlighted in the report included “an apparent steadfast and unfaltering belief by CBL in its business strategy and the profitability of its business that was primarily dependent on the level of claims reserves as assessed by the company’s Appointed Actuary”.

The report authors say they were conscious that “some parties associated with CBL” may perceive parts of the report as reflecting adversely on them, and had provided draft excerpts and considered their submissions in consultations during January and March.

“We did not accept all of the input in the submissions but have edited the report to reflect as best we could a fair, balanced and relevant commentary wherever references are made to these parties.”