Groupama
Encyclopedia
Groupama contraction of GROUPe des Assurances Mutuelles Agricoles (French for Group of Mutual Agricultural Insurances) is an international insurance group based in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. Its UK subsidiary Groupama Insurances was created by the merger of Lombard Insurance Company Limited and Gan Insurance Company Limited, when the parent companies, namely Groupama (who owned Lombard) and Gan in France, were brought together in 1999.

It is listed in the 2007 ICA
International Co-operative Alliance
The International Co-operative Alliance is a non-governmental co-operative federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895. The ICA maintains the internationally recognised definition of a co-operative...

 Global 300 list of mutuals and co-operatives, ranked 6th by 2005 turnover, making it the 2nd largest mutual insurer in the world.

The group's Groupama Insurances United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 division is one of the major insurance companies there, with a head office in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. It has branches in Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...

, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

, Borehamwood
Borehamwood
-Film industry:Since the 1920s, the town has been home to several film studios and many shots of its streets are included in final cuts of 20th century British films. This earned it the nickname of the "British Hollywood"...

, and recently Letchworth
Letchworth
Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The town's name is taken from one of the three villages it surrounded - all of which featured in the Domesday Book. The land used was first purchased by Quakers who had intended to farm the...

, following its acquisition of Clinicare Insurance in 2005. The UK group offers motor, home and health insurance and also provides insurance protection to a growing number of smaller UK businesses. The company employs over 800 staff in 6 centres.

In 2006, the group acquired UK motorcycle insurance broker Carole Nash
Carole Nash
Carole Nash is an insurance intermediary based in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, specialising in providing motorcycle insurance to customers in the UK and Ireland...

.

In 2008, Groupama acquired specialist motor insurance broker, ChoiceQuote Insurance Services
ChoiceQuote Insurance Services
ChoiceQuote Insurance Services is part of the GAN UK Group, the UK broker division of Groupama Insurances.ChoiceQuote currently employs around 70 staff at its head office in Liverpool, with other branches in Manchester and Glasgow.- History :1995...

.

Ethics

GROUPAMA was caught in a software piracy case of $200m and has made an unofficial affidavit
Affidavit
An affidavit is a written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation administered by a person authorized to do so by law. Such statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public...

 (claiming that it was not guilty) to divert BEFTI investigators from the evidences officially collected one month ago at a different office.

In its affidavit, GROUPAMA argued that bank secrecy
Bank secrecy
Bank secrecy is a legal principle in some jurisdictions under which banks are not allowed to provide to authorities personal and account information about their customers unless certain conditions apply...

entitled it to limit the scope of police investigations to a building that was not the place where evidences about the infraction were officially collected.

After the fraud was discovered and denounced by the victim, as GROUPAMA managed to have the General Prosecutor of Paris to state that Police was 'right' to ignore the criminal file and focus only on the information provided by GROUPAMA itself, there is room for serious doubts in the way that affair was conducted.

As a matter of facts, FINAMA and GROUPAMA have reported false information to the markets regarding their own accounts (where the fraud described below has never been reported).

All the details, including the General Prosecutor reply, the BEFTI investigation file and the unofficial affidavit by GROUPAMA have been made publicly available.

External links

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