And should finally be free to return to frontline underwriting after a drawn-out investigation by the Corporation.
The experienced underwriter had already seen the majority of charges brought by the Corporation dismissed unanimously by a Lloyd’s Enforcement Tribunal earlier this year.
The Corporation – acting through the market’s ruling body, the Council – had pursued five charges against Tomlin relating to historic allegations of misconduct including bullying and discrimination raised by a former Atrium female underwriter.
These charges consisted of 36 individual instances. Of these, 24 were dismissed as either unproven or false following a hearing which took place from 12-21 December 2021.
The remaining 12 were also rejected by the tribunal chair – Clyde & Co partner Jane Andrewartha – but upheld on a qualified basis by her two junior panellists: former banker Paul Rex and James Linsao, global COO at Qatar Insurance Company-owned Lloyd’s insurer Antares.
The findings of the senior lawyer – detailed in a 208-page report – provided Tomlin with grounds for appeal and all of the remaining 12 individual instances of alleged misconduct were rejected by the appeal process.
The decision means Lloyd’s has failed to establish Tomlin of “conduct which was discreditable to Lloyd’s and detrimental to the interests of the Society and its underwriting agents” and he is, in theory, free to return to underwriting.
The initial investigation
Lloyd’s investigation into Tomlin’s behaviour and Atrium’s handling of it began in 2020 following a complaint from one former female member of his underwriting team. In 2019, she had logged a series of formal complaints about Tomlin’s conduct alleging bullying, inappropriate language and discrimination and then the following year submitted a complaint to Lloyd’s.
As this publication reported in July, the tribunal report revealed Atrium instigated a series of formal investigations which partially agreed with some of her complaints and were responsible for Tomlin’s departure from the firm in 2019 after 18 years at the managing agency, where he was “acknowledged every year as a top-quartile performer at Lloyd’s”.
Tomlin returned to the London market in June 2020 as head of marine, aviation and war at Convex and Lloyd’s then began an investigation in August of that year which ran until July 2021 and which included a deep-dive through Atrium email records going back several years.
The investigation culminated in Lloyd’s on 16 March 2022 publishing the findings of its Enforcement Board in market bulletin Y5389, which sent shockwaves through the market.
Lloyd’s censured Atrium for an annual “boys’ night out” event that existed until 2018 and which saw staff, including two unnamed senior executives, "engaged in unprofessional and inappropriate conduct, including initiation games, heavy drinking and making inappropriate and sexualised comments about female colleagues, which were both discriminatory and harassing to female members of staff".
Tomlin, the Enforcement Tribunal heard, was not part of this Atrium drinking set but admitted that he had been involved in boorish behaviour outside of work which came under the microscope during the original tribunal and more recent appeal.
Atrium – which admitted the charges – received the highest ever fine handed down by Lloyd’s of £1mn plus circa £500,000 costs. It is almost certainly no coincidence that its two most senior executives – former CEO Richard Harries and underwriter Toby Drysdale– have also since retired.
Tomlin, however, contested the charges brought against him which, if he’d accepted, would have resulted in a lifetime ban and a six-figure fine. Indeed, Andrewartha criticised Lloyd’s in her judgment earlier this year for effectively identifying Tomlin, which resulted in the underwriter parting company from his then employer Convex before his own Enforcement Tribunal had taken place.
The 208-page original judgment outlined in some detail historic cases of excessive drinking by Tomlin and his former colleagues which – examined forensically and by today’s mores – appear outdated and inappropriate.
But what the decisions in both the original Enforcement Tribunal and subsequent appeal have shown is that the threshold for establishing misconduct is much higher than drinking to excess outside of work or using a crude nickname for the then Lloyd’s CEO (one of Lloyd’s 36 charges). After all, Tomlin had already lost his job at Atrium following the complaint – what Lloyd’s was seeking to do was ban him from ever working in the market again.
Tomlin and his legal representatives were not immediately available to comment but a Lloyd’s spokesperson told this publication that “all such actions are undertaken with independent oversight and follow due process”.
“The matter is still under detailed consideration and so it is inappropriate to make any further comment on the case at this point in time. However, we would like to take this opportunity to confirm that Lloyd’s does not and will not tolerate unacceptable conduct in any form. Lloyd’s treats non-financial misconduct as seriously as financial misconduct and we will continue to take robust action when such misconduct is reported to us,” the spokesperson said.
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