title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Snoke's appearance changed throughout principal photography and post-production of "The Force Awakens". Andy Serkis said, "It's the first time I've been on set not yet knowing what the character's gonna look like. I mean, talk about secrecy!" According to the actor, the character's appearance, voice, and movements evolved as he and the film's writer/director J. J. Abrams challenged the visual effects team.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: According to "The Force Awakens" senior sculptor Ivan Manzella, "Snoke almost became a female at one point. J. J. picked out a maquette he liked and then we took it to a full-size version, sculpted in plasteline. J. J. and [creature creative supervisor Neal Scanlan] didn't want him to be old and decrepit, like <nowiki>[</nowiki>Emperor Palpatine<nowiki>]</nowiki>." Manzella later revealed that, influenced by a reference by Abrams to "Hammer House of Horror", he partially based a maquette of Snoke on Peter Cushing, who portrayed Grand Moff Tarkin in the original "Star Wars" film.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: While Serkis secretly joined the project in February 2014, his casting in "The Force Awakens" was first announced on April 29, 2014. When asked about his role in July 2014, he joked, "I'm not Yoda." In May 2015, a StarWars.com interview with photographer Annie Leibovitz about her "The Force Awakens" shoot for "Vanity Fair" revealed that Serkis would be playing a CGI character named Supreme Leader Snoke, and featured an image of the actor in motion capture gear. Serkis had previously played several CGI characters using motion capture technology, including the titular ape in 2005's "King Kong", and Caesar in the "Planet of the Apes" reboot series.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: According to Serkis’ costar Lupita Nyong'o, who played the CGI character Maz Kanata in "The Force Awakens", the actor coached her on performance-capture work, telling Nyong'o that "a motion-capture character you develop the same way as any other. You have to understand who the character is and what makes them who they are." Serkis said of filming:


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Costume designer Michael Kaplan had the idea to give Snoke gold robes to contrast from his red and black throne room in "The Last Jedi". Director Rian Johnson said the red motif was intended to evoke curtains in a nod to "The Wizard of Oz", in which the titular character hides behind a curtain. The throne room was designed to look theatrical as opposed to Palpatine's, which was more utilitarian. The conceptual designers of the set were inspired by unused concept art for "Return of the Jedi" depicting the Emperor's lava-based lair under the surface of Coruscant. According to "The Last Jedi: The Visual Dictionary" (2017), the gold ring Snoke wears is set with obsidian from Darth Vader's castle on Mustafar. The glyphs it is set with are a reference to four philosophers Palpatine had statues of in his office, first seen in "". Additionally, Palpatine's theme can be heard during the scene in which Snoke tortures Rey.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: In the context of the story, Snoke is a "genetic strandcast" who serves as Emperor Palpatine's proxy in power, created by Palpatine on Exegol during a failed attempt to clone himself after his rise to power as Galactic Emperor. Snoke, whom Abrams called "a powerful figure on the dark side of the Force", was introduced as the leader of the First Order and master to the sequel trilogy's primary villain, Kylo Ren. Serkis described Snoke as "quite an enigmatic character, and strangely vulnerable at the same time as being quite powerful. Obviously he has a huge agenda. He has suffered a lot of damage." Serkis called Snoke "a new character in this universe", adding "I think it'd be fair to say that he is aware of the past to a great degree."


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Explaining why CGI was the only way to create Snoke's unique appearance, Serkis said before the film's premiere, "The scale of him, for instance, is one reason. He is large. He appears tall. And also just the facial design—you couldn't have gotten there with prosthetics ... he has a very distinctive, idiosyncratic bone and facial structure." Chief of creature and droid effects Neal Scanlan said, "This character is much better executed as a CGI character. That's just a practical reality when he's 7-foot-something tall; he's very, very thin." Snoke's "scarred, cavernous face" was not revealed before the release of the film, in which he appears as a "massive, ominous hologram". The character's deep voice was first heard in the teaser trailer released on November 28, 2014.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Robbie Collin of "The Telegraph" described the disfigured and skeletal Snoke as a "sepulchral horror", Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" called him "hissing and grotesque", and Andrew O'Hehir of "Salon" dubbed the character "a spectral demonic figure". "Variety"s Justin Chang wrote that Snoke resembled "a plus-sized, more articulate version of his character Gollum", and Chris Nashawaty of "Entertainment Weekly" described him as "essentially Emperor Palpatine crossed with one of the aliens from "Close Encounters"." Stephanie Zacharek of "Time" called the character "a giant, scary, noseless dude who sits placidly in an oversized chair like a dark-lord version of the Lincoln Monument."


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: There were multiple fan theories regarding the origins and identity of Snoke prior to the 2019 film "". Such theories included that he was Darth Plagueis, a Sith Lord anecdotally mentioned in "" and the mentor of Palpatine, allegedly possessing the power to prevent death; Palpatine himself, "the Operator" Gallius Rax, a mysterious First Order manipulator from Chuck Wendig's "" novel trilogy; or Ezra Bridger, a main character from the animated series "Star Wars Rebels".


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: In his first appearance in the film, Snoke is introduced as Supreme Leader of the First Order, and master to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Seduced to the dark side by Snoke, the masked Kylo is really Ben Solo, the son of Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Snoke senses an "awakening" in the Force, and warns Ren that the limits of his power will be tested when he faces his father in pursuit of the wayward droid BB-8, which carries a map to the missing Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Later, Snoke orders General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) to destroy the New Republic with the Starkiller Base superweapon. He then orders Ren to bring Rey (Daisy Ridley) to him after she refuses to disclose the map to Luke. After Ren is defeated in a lightsaber duel with Rey, Snoke orders Hux to bring Ren to him to complete his training.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Following the events of "The Force Awakens", Snoke leads the First Order forces as they pursue the outnumbered Resistance. He reprimands Hux for his failings as a military leader, and Kylo Ren for his failure to defeat Rey and find Luke Skywalker. Towards the end of the film, Ren brings Rey to Snoke, who tortures her for information on Luke's location. Snoke reveals that he created a psychic bond between Ren and Rey as part of a plan to destroy Luke. He then orders Ren to kill Rey. Ren, however, kills Snoke by using the Force to cut him in half with a lightsaber. Ren later declares himself the new Supreme Leader of the First Order, pinning Snoke's death on Rey.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: In "The Rise of Skywalker", Kylo Ren finds several clones resembling Snoke at Palpatine's (Ian McDiarmid) lair on the Sith world Exegol. Snoke's voice is briefly used by Palpatine when talking to Ren. It is revealed that Palpatine had created Snoke as a puppet to lure Ren towards the dark side, and to reclaim the galaxy through the First Order.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Snoke appears in the of "The Force Awakens" by Alan Dean Foster. In the novel, Leia tells Han in more detail how Snoke, aware that their son would be "strong with the Force" and possess "equal potential for good or evil", had long watched Ben and manipulated events to draw him to the dark side. An unplayable Lego minifigure version of Snoke appears in cutscenes in the 2016 video game "", but became playable in as a character of the Dark Side class, and is the only Sith, (aside from the Classic and Holiday Special versions of Darth Vader), to not be unlocked through playing the story, instead as an unlockable from a sidequest in Exegol. In the spring of 2018, Snoke was added to the mobile MOBA "" as a playable Dark Side squad leader.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Snoke is the focus of the 2019 one-shot comic book "Age of Resistance: Villains – Supreme Leader Snoke", in which he says to Kylo, "If I had your uncle by my side instead of you, the galaxy would have been mine a long time ago."


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: According to "The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary" (2019), Snoke's physical appearance was purposefully designed by Palpatine to ensure his species remained unidentifiable. Furthermore, Snoke's reluctance to meet in person with his First Order underlings helped conceal the fact that he was an artificial being. General Pryde (Richard E. Grant), a supporting villain in "The Rise of Skywalker", was one of the few characters who knew Snoke was subservient to a higher power. "The Star Wars Book" (released in 2020 and co-authored by Lucasfilm creative Pablo Hidalgo) suggested Snoke may have been unaware of his origins. In "The Rise of Kylo Ren" comic book series, Kylo believes that Luke is responsible for Snoke's injuries.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "Supreme Leader Snoke is a larger-than-life, vaguely "Harry Potter"-ish hologram voiced with deep gravity by Andy Serkis; the full weight of this character's malignancy and dramatic power will presumably be better assessed in subsequent episodes." Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" called Serkis "the undisputed champion of the performance-capture roles". Though praising the "unobtrusive sophistication" of the visual effects used to portray the character, "Variety"s Justin Chang said that Serkis is "fine but not galvanizing" in the role. Lindsay Bahr of the Associated Press deemed Snoke one of the "less memorable" characters in "The Force Awakens". In 2016, Serkis was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Virtual Performance for the role.


title: Supreme Leader Snoke

text: Some viewers felt that Snoke's character arc was underdeveloped. Various fan theories about his origins were held so strongly among some viewers that it was difficult for them to accept his demise in "The Last Jedi". Rian Johnson's decision to kill the character without developing him further was criticized by many, and is commonly cited as one of the divisive film's biggest failings. Serkis addressed the criticisms by saying producers wanted the character "to have a great deal of mystery", but that he "has been asked to not shed anything should they want to bring him back in any way, whether prequel or whatever". "Forbes" criticized "The Force Awakens" for not developing Snoke as a character, or exploring his backstory and inexplicable rise to power after the events of the original trilogy, calling the character "a bandage poorly placed over a gaping plot-hole". Serkis acknowledged that some fans found the lack of backstory "incredibly frustrating", but suggested this as an opportunity to layer Snoke in a future story. Despite the criticisms towards the writing, "Forbes" praised Serkis’ performance in both films, and was much more positive towards his appearance in "The Last Jedi", highlighting his death and his relationship with his apprentice, Kylo Ren.


title: Pudding

text: Pudding is a type of food. It can be either a dessert or a savoury (salty or spicy) dish served as part of the main meal.


title: Pudding

text: In the United States, "pudding" means a sweet, milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, instant custards or a mousse, often commercially set using cornstarch, gelatin or similar coagulating agent such as Jell-O. The modern American meaning of pudding as dessert has evolved from the original almost exclusive use of the term to describe savoury dishes, specifically those created using a process similar to that used for sausages, in which meat and other ingredients in mostly liquid form are encased and then steamed or boiled to set the contents.


title: Pudding

text: In the United Kingdom and some of the Commonwealth countries, the word "pudding" is used to describe sweet and savoury dishes. Savoury puddings include Yorkshire pudding, black pudding, suet pudding and steak and kidney pudding. Unless qualified, however, pudding usually means dessert and in the United Kingdom, "pudding" is used as a synonym for dessert. Puddings made for dessert can be boiled and steamed puddings, baked puddings, bread puddings, batter puddings, milk puddings or even jellies.


title: Pudding

text: In some Commonwealth countries these puddings are known as custards (or curds) if they are egg-thickened, as blancmange if starch-thickened, and as jelly if gelatin-based. Pudding may also refer to other dishes such as bread pudding and rice pudding, although typically these names derive from their origin as British dishes.


title: Pudding

text: The word pudding is believed to come from the Latin word botellus, meaning sausage, possibly leading to the French boudin, originally from the Latin botellus, meaning "small sausage", referring to encased meats used in medieval European puddings. Another is from the West German 'pud' meaning 'to swell'.


title: Pudding

text: According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word 'pudding' dates to the thirteenth century. It refers to the entrails or stomach of a sheep, pig or other animal stuffed with meat, offal, suet, oatmeal and seasonings. By the 1500s the word was used to refer to the guts or entrails or the contents of other people's stomachs especially when pierced with a sword, as in battle. The Oxford English Dictionary describes puddings also as 'A boiled, steamed or baked dish made with various sweet (or sometimes) savoury ingredients added to the mixture, typically including milk, eggs, and flour (or other starchy ingredients such as suet, rice, semolina, etc.), enclosed within a crust made from such a mixture'.


title: Pudding

text: The modern usage of the word "pudding" to mean a dessert has evolved from the almost exclusive use of the term to describe a savoury dish, specifically those created using a process similar to sausages, where meat and other ingredients in a mostly liquid form are encased and then steamed or boiled to set the contents. The most famous examples still surviving are black pudding and haggis. Other savoury dishes include suet pudding and steak and kidney pudding. Boiled or steamed pudding was a common main course aboard ships in the Royal Navy during the 18th and 19th centuries; pudding was used as the primary dish in which daily rations of flour and suet were employed.


title: Pudding

text: Commonwealth dessert puddings are rich, fairly homogeneous starch- or dairy-based desserts such as rice pudding or steamed cake mixtures such as treacle sponge pudding (with or without the addition of ingredients such as dried fruits as in a Christmas pudding).


title: Pudding

text: In the United States and some parts of Canada, "pudding" characteristically denotes a sweet milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, instant custards or a mousse, often commercially set using cornstarch, gelatin or similar coagulating agent such as the Jell-O brand line of products. In Commonwealth countries (other than some Canadian regions), these foods are known as custards (or curds) if they are egg-thickened, blancmange if starch-thickened, and jelly if gelatin-based. Pudding may also refer to other dishes such as bread pudding and rice pudding in North America, although typically these names derive from their origin as British dishes.


title: Pudding

text: One of the first documented mentions of pudding can be found in Homer's "Odyssey" where a blood pudding roasted in a pig's stomach is described. This original meaning of a pudding as a sausage is retained in black pudding, which is a blood sausage originating in the United Kingdom and Ireland made from pork or beef blood, with pork fat or beef suet, and a cereal.


title: Pudding

text: Another early documented recipe for pudding is a reference to asida is found in a tenth century Arabic cookbook by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq called "Kitab al-Ṭabīḫ" (, "The Book of Dishes"). It was described as a thick pudding of dates cooked with clarified butter ("samn"). A recipe for asida was also mentioned in an anonymous Hispano-Muslim cookbook dating to the 13th century. In the 13th and 14th centuries, in the mountainous region of the Rif along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, flour made from lightly grilled barley was used in place of wheat flour. A recipe for asida that adds argan seed oil was documented by Leo Africanus (c. 1465–1550), the Arab explorer known as Hasan al-Wazan in the Arab world. According to the French scholar Maxime Rodinson, asida were typical foods among the Bedouin of pre-Islamic and, probably, later times.


title: Pudding

text: In the United Kingdom and some of the Commonwealth countries, the word "pudding" can be used to describe both sweet and savoury dishes. Unless qualified, however, the term in everyday usage typically denotes a dessert; in the United Kingdom, "pudding" is used as a synonym for a dessert course.


title: Pudding

text: Puddings had their 'real heyday...', according to food historian Annie Gray, '...from the seventeenth century onward'. It is argued that 'the future of the boiled suet pudding as one of England's national dishes was assured only when the pudding cloth came into use' and although puddings boiled in cloths may have been mentioned in the medieval era one of the earliest mentions is in 1617 in a recipe for Cambridge pudding, a pudding cloth is indicated; 'throw your pudding in, being tied in a fair cloth; when it is boiled enough, cut it in the midst, and so serve it in'.


title: Pudding

text: The pudding cloth is said, according to food historian C. Anne Wilson, to have revolutionised puddings. 'The invention of the pudding-cloth or bag finally severed the link between puddings and animal guts. Puddings could now be made at any time, and they became a regular part of the daily fare of almost all classes. Recipes for them proliferated.'


title: Pudding

text: The original pudding was formed by mixing various ingredients with a grain product or other binder such as butter, flour, cereal, eggs, and/or suet, resulting in a solid mass. These puddings are baked, steamed, or boiled. Depending on its ingredients, such a pudding may be served as a part of the main course or as a dessert.


title: Pudding

text: Steamed pies consisting of a filling completely enclosed by suet pastry are also known as puddings. These may be sweet or savoury and include such dishes as steak and kidney pudding.


title: Pudding

text: The second and newer type of pudding consists of sugar, milk, and a thickening agent such as cornstarch, gelatin, eggs, rice or tapioca to create a sweet, creamy dessert. These puddings are made either by simmering on top of the stove in a saucepan or double boiler or by baking in an oven, often in a bain-marie. These puddings are easily scorched on the fire, which is why a double boiler is often used; microwave ovens are also now often used to avoid this problem and to reduce stirring.


title: Pudding

text: Creamy puddings are typically served chilled, but a few, such as zabaglione and rice pudding, may be served warm. Instant puddings do not require boiling and can therefore be prepared more quickly.


title: Pudding

text: This pudding terminology is common in North America and some European countries such as the Netherlands, whilst in Britain, egg-thickened puddings are considered custards and starch-thickened puddings called blancmange.


title: Pudding

text: Table cream is a dessert, similar to blancmange. The dessert was popularized by English manufacturer Symington's Ltd in the early 20th century. It is still produced under the Symington's brand name, but no longer made by the original company.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., with 80 other offices around the globe. The company's stated core business is to provide consulting, analysis and engineering services to public and private sector organizations and nonprofits.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: The company that was to become Booz Allen was founded in 1914, in Evanston, Illinois, when Northwestern University graduate Edwin G. Booz founded the "Business Research Service." The service was based on Booz's theory that companies would be more successful if they could call on someone outside their own organizations for expert, impartial advice. Booz's service attracted a number of clients, such as Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Chicago's Union Stockyards and Transit Company, and the Canadian Pacific Railway.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: During the following three decades, the company went through a number of name changes and business models, eventually settling on Booz, Fry, Allen & Hamilton, named after their partnership in 1936. Before Fry's departure in 1942, the company's name was changed again to Booz Allen Hamilton.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In general, the post-World War II era saw a shift in the company's client pool, with many contracts coming from governmental institutions and different branches of the Armed Forces.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Edwin G. Booz died in 1951. The company received its first international contract two years later, in 1953, to help reorganize land-ownership records for the newly established Philippines government.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: The partnership was dissolved in 1962 and the company was registered as a private corporation. In 1998, Booz Allen Hamilton developed a strategy for the IRS to reshuffle its 100,000 employees into units focused on particular taxpayer categories.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Bloomberg named it "the world's most profitable spy organization". According to an Information Week piece from 2002, Booz Allen had "more than one thousand former intelligence officers on its staff". According to its own website, the company employs more than 10,000 personnel who have cleared TS/SCI background checks.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In 2008, the commercial arm of Booz Allen split off to form Booz & Company. In 2013, Booz & Company was acquired by PwC and renamed as Strategy&. Since then, Booz Allen has re-entered commercial markets. In 2010, Booz Allen went public with an initial public offering of 14,000,000 shares at $17 per share. In 2012, Booz Allen purchased the Defense Systems Engineering & Support division of ARINC, adding approximately 1,000 new employees to its roster. In 2014, Booz Allen acquired Epidemico. In 2015, Booz Allen acquired the software development division of the Charleston, S.C. technology firm SPARC. In 2017, Booz Allen acquired eGov Holdings. In 2018, the SEC awarded both Booz Allen and Attain a $2.5 billion contract to modernize how the SEC purchases IT services.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In February 2020, the company became the SEC's major provider of cybersecurity services by securing a 10-year contract worth $113 million. The company was awarded $4.4 billion in U.S. Federal obligations in fiscal year 2020.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Booz Allen Hamilton has faced criticism and coverage for its close ties with leaders of both major American political parties and their donations to them, as well as its longtime alliances with the militaries and surveillance entities of nations abroad.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In June 2012, Booz Allen expanded its operations in North Africa and the Middle East, with initial plans to add operations in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates. It planned to later add operations to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, during a time when those countries, as stated by Jill R. Aitoro of the "Washington Business Journal", were "recover[ing] from the turmoil associated with the Arab Spring". The Booz Allen employee base, when it was a part of Booz & Company, had long-term relationships with many North African and Middle Eastern countries; Booz Allen had split from Booz & Company.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Booz Allen has been credited with developing several business concepts. In 1957, Sam Johnson, great grandson of the S.C. Johnson & Son founder, and Booz Allen's Conrad Jones published "How to Organize for New Products" which discussed theories on product life-cycle management. In 1958, Gordon Pehrson, deputy director of U.S. Navy Special Projects Office, and Bill Pocock of Booz Allen Hamilton developed the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). In 1982, Booz Allen's Keith Oliver coined the term "supply chain management". In 2013, Booz Allen's Mark Herman, Stephanie Rivera, Steven Mills, and Michael Kim published the Field Guide to Data Science. A second edition was published in 2015. In 2017, Booz Allen's Josh Sullivan and Angela Zutavern published The Mathematical Corporation.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In 2006, at the request of the Article 29 Working Party (an advisory group to the European Commission), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Privacy International (PI) investigated the U.S. government's SWIFT surveillance program, and Booz Allen's role therein. The ACLU and PI filed a memo at the end of their investigation, which called into question the ethics and legality of a government contractor (in this case Booz Allen) acting as auditors of a government program, when that contractor is heavily involved with those same agencies on other contracts. The basic statement was that a conflict of interest may exist. Beyond that, the implication was also made that Booz Allen may be complicit in a program (electronic surveillance of SWIFT) that may be deemed illegal by the European Commission.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: A June 28, 2007 article in "The Washington Post" related how a United States Department of Homeland Security contract with Booz Allen increased from $2 million to more than $70 million through two no-bid contracts, one occurring after the DHS's legal office had advised DHS not to continue the contract until after a review. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the contract characterized it as not well-planned and lacking any measure for assuring valuable work to be completed.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In a rush to meet congressional mandates to establish the information analysis and infrastructure protection offices, agency officials routinely waived rules designed to protect taxpayer money. As the project progressed, the department became so dependent on Booz Allen that it lost the flexibility for a time to seek out other contractors or hire federal employees who might do the job for less.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Elaine Duke, the department's chief procurement officer, acknowledged the problems with the Booz Allen contract, but said those matters have been resolved. She defended a decision to issue a second no-bid contract in 2005 as necessary to keep an essential intelligence operation running until a competition could be held.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: On July 11, 2011 the group Anonymous, as part of its Operation AntiSec, hacked into Booz Allen servers, extracting e-mails and non-salted passwords from the U.S. military. This information and a complete dump of the database were placed in a file shared on The Pirate Bay. Despite Anonymous' claims that 90,000 emails were released, the Associated Press counted only 67,000 unique emails, of which only 53,000 were military addresses. The remainder of the addresses came from educational institutions and defense contractors. Anonymous also said that it accessed four gigabytes of Booz Allen source code and deleted those four gigabytes. According to a statement by the group, "We infiltrated a server on their network that basically had no security measures in place."


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Anonymous accused Booz Allen of working with HBGary Federal by creating a project for the manipulation of social media. Anonymous also accused Booz Allen of participating in intelligence-gathering and surveillance programs of the U.S. federal government and, as stated by Kukil Bora of the "International Business Times", "possible illegal activities". Booz Allen confirmed the intrusion on 13 July, but contradicted Anonymous' claims in saying that the attack never got past their own systems, meaning that information from the military should be secure. In August of that year, during a conference call with analysts, Ralph Shrader, the chairman and CEO, stated that "the cost of remediation and other activities directly associated with the attack" were not expected to have a "material effect on our financial results".


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In June 2013, Edward Snowden—at the time a Booz Allen employee contracted to projects of the National Security Agency (NSA)—publicly disclosed details of classified mass surveillance and data collection programs, including PRISM. The alleged leaks are said to rank among the most significant breaches in the history of the NSA and led to considerable concern worldwide. Booz Allen condemned Snowden's leak of the existence of PRISM as "shocking" and "a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm". The company fired Snowden "in absentia" shortly after and stated he had been an employee for less than three months at the time. Market analysts considered the incident "embarrassing" but unlikely to cause enduring commercial damage. Booz Allen stated that it would work with authorities and clients to investigate the leak. Charles Riley of "CNN"/"Money" said that Booz Allen was "scrambling to distance itself from Snowden".


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: According to Reuters, a source "with detailed knowledge on the matter" stated that Booz Allen's hiring screeners detected possible discrepancies in Snowden's résumé regarding his education, since some details "did not check out precisely", but decided to hire him anyway; Reuters stated that the element which triggered these concerns, or the manner in which Snowden satisfied the concerns, were not known.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: On July 10, 2013, the United States Air Force stated that it cleared Booz Allen of wrongdoing regarding the Snowden case.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: In 2013, David Sirota of "Salon" said that Booz Allen and parent company The Carlyle Group make significant political contributions to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party as well as individual politicians, including Barack Obama and John McCain. Sirota concluded that "many of the politicians now publicly defending the surveillance state and slamming whistleblowers like Snowden have taken huge sums of money from these two firms", referring to Booz Allen and Carlyle, and that the political parties are "bankrolled by these firms". According to Maplight, a company that tracked campaign donations, Booz Allen gave a total of just over $87,000 to U.S. lawmakers from 2007 to June 2013.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: According to CNBC, these contributions resulted in a steady stream of government contracts, which puts Booz Allen in privileged position. Due to the company's important government services, “the government is unlikely to let the company go out of business. It's too connected to fail”. Furthermore, the influence Booz Allen carries in Washington isn't restricted to donations, but to a large network of lobbyists and political insiders. According to government watchdog OpenSecrets, “4 out of 6 Booz Allen Hamilton lobbyists in 2015-2016 have previously held government jobs”.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Booz Allen helped the Government of the United Arab Emirates create an equivalent of the National Security Agency for that country. According to David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth of "The New York Times", "one Arab official familiar with the effort" said that "They are teaching everything. Data mining, Web surveillance, all sorts of digital intelligence collection." In 2013 Sanger and Perlroth said that the company "profits handsomely from its worldwide expansion".


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: Booz Allen has particularly come under scrutiny for its ties to the government of Saudi Arabia and the support it provides to the Saudi armed forces. Alongside competitors McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group, Booz Allen are seen as important factors in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s drive to consolidate power in the Kingdom. On the military side, Booz Allen is employing dozens of retired American military personnel to train and advise the Royal Saudi Navy and provide logistics for the Saudi Army, but denies its expertise is used by Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen. Additionally, it also entered an agreement with the Saudi government that involves the protection and cyber-security of government ministries, with experts arguing that these defensive maneuvers could easily be used to target dissidents.


title: Booz Allen Hamilton

text: David Sirota of "Salon" said that politicians in the United States who received financing from Booz Allen and "other firms with a similar multinational business model" have vested interests in "denigrating the democratic protest movements that challenge Mideast surveillance states that make those donors big money, too."


title: SR-25

text: The SR-25 (Stoner Rifle-25) is a designated marksman rifle and semi-automatic sniper rifle designed by Eugene Stoner and manufactured by Knight's Armament Company.


title: SR-25

text: The SR-25 uses a rotating bolt and a direct impingement gas system. It is loosely based on Stoner's AR-10, rebuilt in its original 7.62×51mm NATO caliber. Up to 60% of parts of the SR-25 are interchangeable with the AR-15 and M16—everything but the upper and lower receivers, the hammer, the barrel assembly and the bolt carrier group. SR-25 barrels were originally manufactured by Remington Arms with its 5R (five grooves, right twist) rifling, with twist 1:11.25. The heavy barrel is free-floating, so handguards are attached to the front of the receiver and do not touch the barrel.


title: SR-25

text: In the late 1950s, Eugene Stoner designed the AR-10 battle rifle to equip U.S. troops. It was accurate for an auto-loading rifle, but it lost the competition to the M14 rifle. The patent rights for the AR-10 and the AR-15 were sold to Colt's Manufacturing Company. Colt focused on the AR-15, giving others the ability to capitalize on the AR-10 system.


title: SR-25

text: In the early 1990s, Stoner joined Knight's Armament Company. He continued his AR-10 design work and joined it with the direct gas system of the AR-15. The result was the SR-25 (adding together the numbers of the AR-10 and AR-15) which improved the AR-10 design with M16A2 advancements and parts commonality. The original SR-25 was released in the early 1990s and had a heavy free-floating match grade barrel with a fiberglass handguard. It had a flat top upper receiver with a Mil-Std 1913 rail for mounting optics and a 2-stage match grade trigger. The bolt carrier was similar to the AR-10's, being chrome plated and having a captive firing pin retainer pin. The SR-25 was designed specifically to fire open-tip match cartridges. Accuracy was guaranteed at or under 1 minute of angle. At first, AR-10 type 20-round magazines were used, but they were later replaced by steel 20-round magazines resembling those used by the M16.


title: SR-25

text: United States Special Operations Command took interest in the SR-25, particularly its high magazine capacity and faster engagement time compared to bolt-action rifles. After some modifications, SOCOM adopted the SR-25 as the Mk 11 MOD 0 in May 2000. Changes included a shorter barrel that could fire M118 and M118LR 7.62×51mm NATO rounds and had a quick detachable sound suppressor mount. An free-floating handguard rail system allowed mounting accessories. Flip-up front sights and adjustable back-up iron sights were added, and an M16A2 stock and pistol grip were used.


title: SR-25

text: Beginning in mid-2011, SOCOM began divesting the Mk 11 MOD 0 from their inventory and replacing it with the SSR Mk 20, the sniper variant of the FN SCAR. The Mk 11 was completely replaced by 2017.


title: SR-25

text: The SR-25 enhanced match rifle utilizes the newer URX II Picatinny-Weaver rail system, rather than the older Mk 11 free-floating RAS, on the top of the receiver to accept different scope mounts or a carrying handle with iron sights (front sight mounted on the rail located on the forward end of the non-modular handguard). The match version is designed to shoot at a precision of 0.5 minutes of angle, which corresponds to groups at .


title: SR-25

text: The Mk 11 MOD 0 system is chambered for 7.62×51mm NATO, and is designed for match-grade ammunition. The Mk 11 system includes the rifle, 20 round box magazines, QD (Quick Detachable) scope rings, Leupold Mark 4 Mil-dot riflescope, Harris swivel-base bipod on a Knight's mount, and QD sound suppressor, which is also manufactured by Knight's Armament Co. Flip-up BUIS (Back up iron sights) are attached to the modified gas block and upper receiver.


title: SR-25

text: The Mk 11 MOD 0 utilizes an Obermeyer match target barrel, along with a RAS (Rail Accessory System) fore-end made by KAC, consisting of an long match fore-end. The RAS allows for quick attachment/detachment of MIL-STD-1913 components. The aluminum fore-end makes no contact with the barrel forward of the receiver, allowing for improved accuracy. The Mk 11 MOD 0 has an empty weight of , and an overall length of . The civilian version, using the longer match barrel, is guaranteed to produce groupings of less than at , or 0.3 angular mil, using factory match loads.


title: SR-25

text: During the Iraq War, the United States Marine Corps ordered 180 Mk 11 MOD 1 rifles which were Mk 11s equipped with the upper receiver of the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System. The M110 upper gave the Mk 11 MOD 1 a URX modular rail system and a flash suppressor on the barrel. These saw limited use before they were phased out when the Marines chose to purchase the Mk 11 MOD 2, which was simply the USSOCOM and U.S. Navy designation for the complete M110 rifle.


title: SR-25

text: The SR-25 Enhanced Match (E.M.) Carbine is very similar to the KAC M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System, though the M110 utilizes the newer URX Rail system, a length-adjustable fixed buttstock, and an integrated flash suppressor. Starting in late 2011, USMC snipers began to replace Mk 11 MOD 0 rifles with the M110 on a one-for-one basis.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Nanban () is a 2012 Indian Tamil-language coming-of-age comedy drama film directed by Shankar. It is a remake of Rajkumar Hirani's Hindi film "3 Idiots" (2009). The film stars Vijay, Jiiva, Srikanth, Ileana D'Cruz, Sathyaraj and Sathyan. The film's soundtrack and background score were composed by Harris Jayaraj and cinematography was handled by Manoj Paramahamsa. The film was produced by Gemini Film Circuit.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The plot of the film illustrates the embarkment of two friends on a quest for a lost buddy, who was once an optimistic and successful student. On their journey, they recount their college life and special moments that the three shared up until their lost friend secretly parted ways after convocation. During their quest, the two encounter a rival classmate who once made a long-forgotten bet with them, a funeral that goes impossibly out of control, and a wedding they must crash.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: A lengthy and controversial delay in casting delayed filming by a year. Filming took place for a total of eight months in various locations in Europe and India. The film was released on 12 January 2012 to generally positive reviews. The film was also screened at the Melbourne Film Festival.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Wildlife photographer Venkat Ramakrishnan receives a phone call from his collegemate Srivatsan, claiming he knows where Venkat's long-lost friend Panchavan "Pari" Pariventhan is. Venkat meets up with another friend, Sevarkodi Senthil and rushes to the Ideal Engineering College (IEC) to meet Srivatsan. After talking about his bet with Pari about who can become more successful, Srivatsan reveals that Pari is in Ooty and the three begin their journey.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Over a flashback ten years prior, it is shown that Venkat has come to stay at IEC as his father forced him to pursue engineering. He befriends Senthil, whose family hopes he will bring them out of poverty, and Pari, a carefree student who loves learning. Pari, Senthil and Venkat meet their college director Dr. Virumandi Santhanam a.k.a. Virus, whose Draconian teaching philosophy contrast with Pari's easygoing one. One day, when Paneer Selvam, a student with a passion for engineering similar to Pari's, is denied graduation by Virus on grounds of failure to submit his project. Pari tries to fix Pannerselvam's project, but finds out he is too late after Pannerselvam commits suicide. After Venkat's and Senthil's parents confront Pari, the hungry trio gatecrashes a wedding for dinner. Unbeknownst to them, it is the wedding of one of Virus' daughters, Shweta. They also meet Virus' other daughter, Ria and her materially obsessive fiancé, Rakesh. The following morning, Virus tells Venkat and Senthil that Pari is a bad influence, causing Senthil to shift rooms to live with Srivatsan, a psychopath studying person, who in the meantime, as a result of comedy and unhygienic food eating habits,releases his tortured-Onion Kusu. This incident is hated by everyone in the college, so the students call him Kusu Silencer. Seeking to teach Senthil a lesson about rote learning, Pari and Venkat edit obscene words into Srivatsan's Teachers' Day speech, but it fails to convince Senthil. Srivatsan learns about the prank and angrily confronts Pari, challenging him to see who'll be more successful in ten years. After a few days, Pari manipulates Ria into insulting and dumping Rakesh. He learns that Senthil's father has had a stroke, and drives him on a reluctant Ria's scooter to the hospital. Senthil arrives and, after overhearing how that timely intervention saved his father's life, reunites with Venkat and Pari. Ria begins to fall in love with Pari. The next day, they all complete their exams, but Venkat and Senthil are sad to learn they had the two lowest scores. To everyone's surprise, Pari placed first in the entire university, beating a frustrated Srivatsan.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: In the present, Venkat, Senthil and Srivatsan reach Ooty and go to the house where Pari lives. Over there, they are shocked to meet another young man, who identifies himself as the real Pari. Srivatsan reveals that he got the address when his secretary had come to Ooty to make a business deal with a famous scientist/inventor named Kosaksi Pasapugazh. Venkat and Senthil then confront and threaten the "imposter" who, in confessing that he is the real Pari, inadvertently reveals to them that the acquaintance they knew was actually nicknamed "Pappu," the son of the Pariventhan family's gardener, who had an immense passion for learning. Pari made Pappu do all of his homework and, after Pari's father found out, he let the ruse continue, saying he wanted Pappu to have an education and Pari to have a degree. Pari went to London for four years, while Pappu assumed his identity in college, promising to sever ties afterward. Venkat and Senthil leave with Srivatsan for Dhanushkodi, where Pari apparently works at a school.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: During their final years of college, Pari and Ria begin a relationship. One night, Pari sneaks into Virus' house to propose to Ria while Venkat and Senthil drunkenly urinate on Virus' porch. Virus threatens to rusticate Senthil unless he acts as a witness against Pari. Not wanting to disappoint his family or betray his friend, he jumps out of a window, attempting suicide. Pari, Senthil, and Ria all help him recuperate successfully over the next two months. Afterwards, Senthil secures a job with an engineering firm and Venkat convinces his father to let him work as a wildlife photographer. Virus feels insulted and rigs the final exam paper to fail Senthil, but Ria gives Pari the duplicate key to her father's of IEC, encouraging him to copy the rigged paper for Senthil.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: In the present, Venkat and Senthil suddenly remember Ria, and turn around to reach her wedding in Coimbatore. Venkat sneaks in to reunite with Ria while Senthil poses as a housekeeper to show Rakesh is still a materialistic brat. Although Ria initially refuses to break off the marriage, she is surprised to hear Rakesh screaming about the coat Senthil ruined. Senthil proceeds to fill in as the groom and convinces Ria that she still loves Pari. Ria elopes with the duo and Srivatsan to go to Dhanushkodi.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Back in their final year of college, Pari and Venkat successfully copy the question paper, but Senthil refuses to use it. Virus discovers them and rusticates them in the middle of the night. Ria reveals that Virus' son, who Virus thought had died from a train accident, had committed suicide because Virus put too much pressure on him to be an engineer. As Pari, Venkat, and Senthil leave the campus in the middle of a thunderstorm, they come across Ria's now-pregnant sister Shweta as she goes into labour. Seeing as Shweta cannot reach a hospital because of the rain, the trio apply their knowledge of engineering to build a makeshift venthouse with the other students. Realizing the fault in his ways and how smart Pari is, Virus lets the trio stay for the final exams and gifts Pari a very rare Space Pen.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: In the present, Venkat, Senthil, Ria, and Srivatsan reach the school in Dhanushkodi and reunite with Pari. Srivatsan condescendingly insults Pari's apparent status as a schoolteacher. When Ria asks Pari for his real name, he reveals that he is Kosaksi Pasapugazh, the inventor Srivatsan's company was trying to sign the deal with. Pasapugazh calls off the deal and reveals himself to Srivatsan, who is shocked. Pasapugazh, Ria, Venkat and Senthil run away laughing while a humiliated Srivatsan chases after them.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Following Gemini Film Circuit's purchase of the remake rights for "3 Idiots" in January 2010, there was much speculation in regards to the three title roles played by Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi in the original. Gemini Film Circuit approached noted directors Shankar, Vishnuvardhan and S. Dharani to replace Rajkumar Hirani as the director, with the approval from Shankar leading to him being signed. Despite speculation that he was set to pull out from directing his first remake as it would be a step down from his previous film, "Enthiran", Shankar stated his commitment in October 2010. He later added that, "he came across "3 Idiots" during the making of "Endhiran", and it was that moment he decided to break his self-imposed rule – making only original movies – and decided to direct his first remake venture."


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Harris Jayaraj and Yuvan Shankar Raja were approached to compose the soundtrack, with Shankar settling for the former with whom he had worked in the 2005 action film "Anniyan" earlier. Meanwhile, Manoj Paramahamsa, whose work in "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa" and "Eeram" had been critically acclaimed, was signed on as the cinematographer. Sound designer Resul Pookutty and visual effects designer V. Srinivas Mohan joined the crew, following a successful collaboration in "Enthiran".


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: For the lead role, played in "3 Idiots" by Aamir Khan, initial reports suggested that Suriya, Mahesh Babu and Ram Charan were the front runner, who however The actor cited not knowing that Shankar would direct the film he denied the film, later revealed by him in Movie Telugu Version Promotions, which he attended as chief guest. A special screening for the film industry included Vijay, who expressed his desire to work in the film, and was subsequently signed up by Gemini Film Circuits to portray the lead role. However, by mid-December 2010, soon after trial shoots were held, Vijay walked out the film following disputes over his dates, with Suriya being labelled as his likely replacement. Reports claimed that talks with Suriya failed, since the actor had demanded salary increase and dubbing rights for the Telugu-version of the film. Suriya's reasons for refusing the offer was later confirmed not to be true, with Suriya himself revealing that he had opted out only because of other film commitments and "did not want to keep Shankar waiting". As a result, Vijay was once again finalised for the role.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The roles of the other two title characters took considerably longer to confirm. R. Madhavan was initially approached to reprise his role from the original but made it clear that he was unwilling to be a part of the remake, citing the film had already "gone down in history". Early indications suggested that Udhayanidhi Stalin had replaced him but the claims were false. In November 2010, reports emerged that Vinay Rai or Nakul were set to play the role, however Vinay cited that he refused the project as the role was not as meaty as the other two characters. Consequently, the production house signed Srikanth to play the role, after seeing his performance in "Drohi", which had come after several box-office failures for him. Sharman Joshi's role was originally offered to Silambarasan, but after discussions, it was revealed that Silambarasan could not do as he felt he didn't suit the character. Subsequently, the role was offered to Siddharth, a protege of Shankar, who also went on to refuse the project. Despite further reports that Arya and Jiiva were being considered, the latter signed on and agreed with Shankar that he would play Joshi's role instead of Madhavan's. The role played by Kareena Kapoor in the original was offered to Asin Thottumkal. However Ileana D'Cruz was signed on for the film after attempts to cast Katrina Kaif in the film had failed. The college professor's role was given to Sathyaraj, despite early indications that Prakash Raj would be approached. Omi Vaidya was unable to reprise his role from the original and comedian Sathyan Sivakumar was signed on to essay his role after attempts to sign Sricharan of "Payanam" fame has failed, while S. J. Surya signed on to appear in a guest role, portraying the role enacted by Javed Jaffrey. Anuya Bhagvath was signed up for a supporting role. Stage artist Sreedevi Gengiah was selected to play Jiiva's sister. Raju Jeyamohan was initially chosen to play the older version of Rinson Simon's character Millimeter, but was later removed as his eyes did not match Rinson Simon's; the role went to Vikas.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The first schedule of filming was held in Ooty, where scenes involving Ileana, Srikanth and Jiiva were shot. During the second schedule scenes involving the lead cast were canned at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun and Pondicherry Engineering College, Pondicherry and a car chase at various places in Chennai, while two songs were filmed in London and Buckingham during the third schedule. Some significant parts of the film were shot in Chennai at Sun Studios, Kothandapani Studios and the Ampa Skywalk Mall, as well as Koyambedu water tank for three days, for which an Akila crane was used. Further filming, including the climax, was held at various locations in Europe, Andamans and Coimbatore. Filming was wrapped-up in October with a song featuring Vijay and Ileana, which was choreographed by Farah Khan. The filming process lasted for eight months.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Shankar wanted to paint a train for the song sequence, so the team decided to stick paper and then paste the painting on it. Art director Muthuraj hired some 250 artists from various states who were well versed in folk drawings and finished the entire job at breakneck speed and returned the train in time.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The film is a remake of Rajkumar Hirani's "3 Idiots" (2009), which itself was adapted from the novel "Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT!" by Chetan Bhagat. The film deals with the theme that one shouldn't run behind success and rather pursue his/her own interests. If one develops the right skill anything is possible. According to Gauthaman Bhaskaran of "Hindustan Times", "Nanban's message is profound [..] given India's exploitative and unimaginative education system. The film lambasts bookishness, the mad chase for marks, [..] the joy of discovering. Parental and peer pressure and the frightfully huge fees for professional courses push boys and girls into performing puppets. The higher your grades, the closer you are to securing a centum, the brighter become your chances of making it in life".


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The film shows characters having various interests. The character Pari is against the educational system and insists his classmates not to run behind grades rather derive pleasure by understanding and assimilating things while his principal Virumandi Sandhanam aka Virus (Sathyaraj) wants students to become a book worm to excel in academics. Venkat is interested in wildlife photography but his parents compel him to study engineering. Senthil hails from a poor family and is compelled to study a professional course only to bail out his family from all troubles.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The film also uses real inventions by little-known people in India's backyards. The brains behind the innovations were Remya Jose, a student from Kerala, who created the exercise-bicycle/washing-machine; Mohammad Idris, a barber from Meerut district in Uttar Pradesh, who invented a bicycle-powered horse clipper; and Jahangir Painter, a painter from Maharashtra, who made the scooter-powered flour mill which was featured in the original Hindi film.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The soundtrack and background score was composed by Harris Jayaraj, collaborating with Shankar for the second time after "Anniyan" (2005). This film also marks Vijay's first collaboration with Harris Jayaraj. The album features six tracks, with lyrics being provided by Pa. Vijay, Viveka, Na. Muthukumar and Madhan Karky, the latter two penning lyrics for two songs each. Notably, Karky's lyrics in "Asku Laska" include more than 16 different languages. The full soundtrack album was released on 23 December 2011. The release of the Telugu dubbed version album "Snehitudu" was held on 20 January 2012 in Hyderabad.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: "IndiaGlitz.com" wrote that the music album is "ready to mesmerize you". "Behindwoods.com" labelled it a "winner all the way", adding that it had "good variety all through the album [...] and ample scope for festivities in the theater". "Top10cinema.com" wrote that it had three songs that "strike spectacularly with its rich music and commendable lyrics", calling it a "good work by Harris". "KollyTalk.com" called it "Youthful and refreshing". On the contrary, Pavithra Srinivasan from "Rediff" wrote that there was "nothing new about the music in "Nanban"", concluding that Harris Jayaraj had "obviously taken the safe route, sticking to his usual template for most of the songs in this album".


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Prior to the release, "Nanban" was voted the "most expected film" of 2012 through an online public poll conducted by Vikatan. The film was released on 12 January 2012 for Pongal in 925 screens worldwide.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: "Nanban" advance booking opened well in Chennai city and suburbs. It had the highest number of 77 shows in a single day at Mayajaal multiplex in Chennai at that time. The film opened in nearly 625 screens in Tamil Nadu. It was released in 50 screens in Chennai and 31 screens in Hyderabad. It released simultaneously in UK, the US, Malaysia and Singapore. "Nanban" became the first Tamil film to be released with French subtitles in France. It also became the first film to get exempted from the 30 percent entertainment tax in Tamil Nadu by the new scheme introduced by the Government of Tamil Nadu.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Telugu film distributor Dil Rajubought the theatrical rights of "Snehitudu", the Telugu dubbed version of "Nanban" for Andhra Pradesh market. "Snehitudu" was released on 26 January 2012.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: The satellite rights was sold for a record sum to STAR Vijay for . The film was broadcast on 1 May 2012, four months after its theatrical release on the occasion of May day and registered a TRP of 11.1 points.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: Sify called it an "engaging film with noble intentions. It deserves viewing because films like this are hard to find". Behindwoods.com rated the film 3.5/5 and wrote: ""Nanban" has got more than something for everyone. It is very unlikely that a person finds such a wholesome package unsatisfying. All is absolutely well!" Pavithra Srinivasan from Rediff.com gave the film 3/5 stars, describing it as "the perfect feel-good fare for the festive season, despite minor glitches". Malathi Rangarajan from "The Hindu" wrote: ""Nanban" is an enjoyable cocktail of humour with some sentiment and sadness thrown in for that extra appeal. Once again Shankar proves the master craftsman that he is". Anupama Subramanian from "Deccan Chronicle" gave the film 3/5 stars, while labelling it as a "feel-good film with a larger message and a brilliant feat by Vijay which makes the film a not-to-be-missed one!" Venkateswaran Narayanan from "Times of India" noted several anachronisms in the film (such as YouTube being used in 2002 when it was actually launched in 2005) but wrote: "Such minor cribbing apart, all is well with "Nanban" because Shankar's retelling of "3 Idiots" retains its soul and has its heart in the right place". Zee News wrote: ""Nanban" is a must watch, grab your tickets now. It's the best gift Vijay could have given to his diehard fans this Pongal". IndiaGlitz.com named it a "clear entertainer", "a whiff of fresh air from the mindless masala movies" and a welcome change". Rohit Ramachandran of nowrunning.com rated it 3/5 stating that ""Nanban" is Rajkumar Hirani's "3 Idiots" staged and presented by Shankar in a different language with grandeur. The base material is solid and Shankar obediently traces it. Out comes an uplifting entertainer that will draw raves from viewers of all kinds". Oneindia.in gave a positive verdict and wrote, "All is well. It is a Shankar's Sankrathi feast for the audience! Do not hesitate to watch "Nanban" even if you have seen "3 Idiots"". "CNN-IBN" said that it was "sweet and satisfying". "Ananda Vikatan" rated the film 44 out of 100. Acclaimed actor Kamal Haasan appreciated Vijay's performance in the movie and lauded the team's effort in making such a good entertainer. At the Internet Movie Database the film stands up with a rating of 7.8 out of 10 stars. Jeevi from Idlebrain.com with regards to the Telugu dubbed version "Snehithudu" commented that "the magic of 3 idiots is missing", and gave 3/5 stars. Indiaglitz stated that "Snehithudu" was a "passable remake".


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: In Chennai city, the film netted in its first weekend and 64% of the takings, and at the end of the first week, staying at first rank. The film accounted for 66% of the takings at the Chennai box offIEC on its second weekend and 64% on its third weekend. The film grossed around in Chennai after seven weeks, out of which about came from Sathyam Cinemas multiplex. In Coimbatore and Nilgiris area, "Nanban" opened in 70 screens and netted in the first week. It also got a great opening at the Bangalore box-offIEC, where it was still featured in Top 5 even one month after its release. The film's gross collection after its first week from 4 circuits of Coimbatore was around , the highest yield since "Endhiran".


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: "Nanban" was released in 7 screens in Australia and grossed $76,580 in its first weekend. Overall it had grossed $110,422. In UK, it collected $173,789 in its first week with a per screen average of $7,241 in 24 theatres. After its 4-week run the film collected £ (16.6 million) and became the 4th highest grosser in UK. It also secured the first place in the Malaysian box-offIEC in the first week released in 37 screens, and collected a total of $871,959 after a six-week run.


title: Nanban (2012 film)

text: It collected a sum of after 18 days at the Australian box offIEC, whereas it had collected at the Malaysian box offIEC within the same period.


title: Dina Wadia

text: Dina Wadia (born Dina Jinnah; 15 August 19192 November 2017) was the daughter of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan and Rattanbai Petit. She belonged to the prominent Jinnah family through her father, the Petit family through her mother, and to the Wadia family through her marriage to Neville Wadia.


title: Dina Wadia

text: Dina was born in London, shortly after midnight, on 15 August 1919, to the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (often formally referred to as "Quaid-i-Azam"), and his second wife, Rattanbai Petit (whose name was legally amended to "Maryam Jinnah" after her conversion to Islam and marriage, though she did not use her new name).<ref name="dawn/3march2012"></ref> As Stanley Wolpert's "Jinnah of Pakistan" records: "Oddly enough, precisely twenty-eight years to the day and hour before the birth of Jinnah's other offspring, Pakistan". Her premature arrival was unexpected — her parents were at the theatre, but "were obliged to leave their box hurriedly." She was reported to be "a dark-eyed beauty, lithe and winsome, with a smile like her mother's."


title: Dina Wadia

text: Dina's paternal family were upstart merchants of high social status. Their tryst with education was even more recent and rather precarious. Dina's paternal grandfather, Jinnah bhai Poonja, was a merchant who hailed from Gondal in Kathiawar, Gujarat, and had moved to Karachi in the mid-1870s. He had made money, but only a few of his many children managed to complete school. Nevertheless, he had been able to send one of his more academically promising sons, Jinnah, to England for higher education. The family belonged to the Ismaili sect of Shia Muslims who are followers of the Aga Khan, and to the Lohana caste, that is, they were Lohana Hindus who had converted to Islam centuries earlier. Dina's father, Jinnah, was the leader of the Pakistan movement and the founder of Pakistan. After he had achieved the partition of India on religious basis and secured the creation of Pakistan as the homeland of British India's Muslims, Jinnah became the first Governor General of Pakistan. He was bestowed with the title Q"uaid-i-Azam" or "Great Leader" by a grateful nation.


title: Dina Wadia

text: Dina's maternal family was very different from her paternal family both in religion and in social background. The Petit family were rich, titled, well educated and highly westernized. They belonged to the Parsi community and followed the Zoroastrian faith. Dina's great-grandfather, Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, had founded the first cotton mill in India. This and many other contributions to industry, trade and philanthropy had earned him a baronetcy. Dina's mother, Rattanbai "Ruttie") was the daughter of the second baronet. The third baronet, Dina's maternal uncle, was married to Sylla Tata, sister of JRD Tata; the Tata family were the richest in India. The Petit family had disowned Dina's mother, Rattanbai, when she married Jinnah, who incidentally was twenty-four years older than her.


title: Dina Wadia

text: Dina's parents were mismatched not only in age and religion, but also in habits, temperament and views. They separated very shortly after Dina's birth, and Ruttie began living in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai along with her infant daughter, Dina. After Ruttie's death, Fatima moved in with Jinnah to help raise her niece, Dina. Jinnah raised his daughter as a Muslim. According to Jinnah's chauffeur, Bradbury, Jinnah asked his sister, Fatima, "to teach her niece, Dina, about Islam and The Holy Qur'an". During Jinnah's time in London, during 193033, Wolpert commented, "Dina was [Jinnah's] sole comfort, but Dina was away at school most of the time and home only for brief times, yet still the pampered daughter could be a joy to her doting father". In November 1932, Jinnah read H. C. Armstrong's biography of Kemal Atatürk, "Grey Wolf", and seemed to have found his own reflection in the story of Turkey's great modernist leader. It was all he talked about for a while at home, even to Dina, who consequently nicknamed him "Grey Wolf".


title: Dina Wadia

text: Wadia's relationship with her father became strained when she expressed her desire to marry the Parsi-born Indian Neville Wadia who was the son of Sir Ness Wadia and Evelyne Clara Powell. Jinnah, a Muslim, tried to dissuade her, but failed. M. C. Chagla, who was Jinnah's assistant at the time, recalls: "Jinnah, in his usual imperious manner, told her that there were millions of Muslim boys in India, and she could have chosen anyone. Reminding her father that his wife (Dina's mother Rattanbai), had also been a non-Muslim and a Parsi as well, the young lady replied: 'Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?"' "And he replied that, 'She became a Muslim'."


title: Dina Wadia

text: Jinnah's then associate and later a prominent judge M. C. Chagla recounts in his autobiography "Roses in December" that; when Dina married Neville, Jinnah said to her that she was not his daughter any more. This story, however, is contentious as some say that Jinnah had sent a bouquet through his driver, Abdul Hai, to the newly married couple. Their relationship is a matter of legal conjecture as Pakistani laws allow for a person to be disinherited for violating Islamic rules (in this case by a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim), and hence no claim of hers was entertained on the Pakistani properties of Jinnah. The Wadias lived in Bombay and had two children, a boy named Nusli and a girl named Diana N Wadia. The marriage did not last long, however, and she separated from Wadia in 1943; the couple never formally divorced because divorce was illegal in India at the time.


title: Dina Wadia

text: Following the marriage, the father-daughter relationship became extremely formal and he addressed her formally as 'Mrs. Wadia'. This too is contentious as Dina rebuffed this information calling it a rumour. In an interview with Hamid Mir, she said: "My father was not a demonstrative man but he was an affectionate father. My last meeting with him took place in Bombay in 1946. When I was about to depart, my father hugged Nusli (who was two years old then). The grey cap (Jinnah was wearing) caught Nusli’s fancy and in a moment my father put it on Nusli’s head saying, 'Keep it my boy'."


title: Dina Wadia

text: After the death of Dina Wadia, her personal diary revealed that her relationship with her father was no more formal, and they had reunited as a family. The diary also revealed that Dina had visited Pakistan twice, once on her father's death, and then again for the 2004 India-Pakistan cricket match. She had been in regular touch with her aunt, Fatima Jinnah, who had raised her. On 28 April 1947, In one of her letters to her father Jinnah, Dina had said:


title: Dina Wadia

text: "My darling Papa, First of all I must congratulate you — you got Pakistan….how hard you have worked for it…I do hope you are keeping well — I get lots of news of you from the local newspapers in Bombay. The children are just recovering from their whooping cough, it will take another month yet. I am taking them to Juhu on Thursday for a month or so. Are you coming back here? If so I hope you will drive out to Juhu and spend the day if you like. Anyway I have a phone so I will ring you up and drive in to see you if you don’t feel like coming out. Take care of yourself Papa darling. Lots of love & kisses, Dina."


title: Dina Wadia

text: After Jinnah returned to Mumbai from England to take charge of the Muslim League, he built himself a palatial mansion South Court (informally called "Jinnah House") in Mumbai, which became his residence during the politically momentous decade preceding the creation of Pakistan. The house was designed by Claude Batley, a British architect, and was built in 1936 at a total cost of .


title: Dina Wadia

text: After partition in 1947, the 2.5 acres (10,000 m) property, "South Court", overlooking the sea and located at 2, Bhausaheb Hirey Marg (then Mount Pleasant Road), Malabar Hill, was classified as evacuee property.


title: Dina Wadia

text: In 1948, it was subsequently leased to the British Deputy High Commission which occupied it till 1982. Pakistan had since 1979 requested that India sell the property, or at least lease it to its government as a tribute to its founder in order to convert it into their Consulate. Though P. V. Narasimha Rao, India's foreign minister in 1980, agreed in principle to lease "Jinnah House" as the residence of local Consulate-General of Pakistan, the plan was never realised.


title: Dina Wadia

text: During his visit to India, then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had suggested to the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that the house be given to Pakistan so that it could be turned into a consulate. Talks in June 2004 between the foreign ministers of the two countries over the land did not gain any guarantees from India. In May 2005, Pakistan High Commission officials were shown around various properties in Mumbai and its suburbs for the setting up of its consulate but not the Jinnah House. Indian government sources say that the claim by the Jinnah's heirs "will be treated "sympathetically", and have no intention of handing it to Pakistan. "


title: Dina Wadia

text: Dina Wadia, the only child of Jinnah, was involved in litigation regarding Jinnah House claiming that Hindu Law is applicable to Jinnah as he was a Khoja Shia.


title: Dina Wadia

text: It was also campaigned to make "Jinnah House", India-Pakistan Friendship Centre by a group of peace activists from Mumbai and Karachi. In 2007, Dina Wadia filed a writ petition before the Bombay High Court, claiming that Jinnah House could not be classified as "evacuee property", as her father had died without leaving behind a will and demanded that the house be handed over to her.


title: Dina Wadia

text: In March 2004, Wadia visited Lahore, Pakistan, to watch a cricket match between Pakistan and India. She considered "cricket diplomacy" to be an enthralling dimension that illustrated an entirely new phase in relations between India and Pakistan. But she and her son Nusli Wadia chose not to share their thoughts with the public on what was certainly a highly emotional encounter. Wadia had not traveled to Pakistan since her father's funeral in September 1948.


title: Dina Wadia

text: Wadia, her son Nusli Wadia and grandsons Ness Wadia and Jehangir Wadia also visited the mausoleum of her father to pay homage. In the visitors' book, Wadia wrote: ""This has been very sad and wonderful for me. May his dream for Pakistan come true."" Reports said that she asked for copies of three pictures she saw in the mausoleum's antiquities room. In one picture, she is standing with her father and aunt, Fatima Jinnah. The other is a painting of her mother, Rattanbai Jinnah. In the third, her father is dictating a letter, showing Mohammad Ali Jinnah's political persona. Dina also went to the tomb of Madar-e-Millat Fatima Jinnah to pay respects to her aunt, to the Flagstaff House Pakistan to hoist the flag of Pakistan, and to her father's house Wazir Mansion.


title: Dina Wadia

text: Dina died from pneumonia at her home in Madison Avenue in New York City on 2 November 2017, at the age of 98. Her death was deeply mourned by the people of Pakistan, and was described as the "nation's grief". Several political leaders, including the then Prime Minister and President of Pakistan issued official statements on her death, and later said that she was "greatly respected and admired in Pakistan". The Sindh Assembly in Pakistan observed a one-minute silence in her remembrance and offered Al-Fatiha for her and her father's departed soul. Dina was survived by her son and Wadia group chairman Nusli Wadia, daughter Diana Wadia, and grandsons Ness Wadia and Jehangir Wadia.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body governed by the Lloyd's Act 1871 and subsequent Acts of Parliament. It operates as a partially-mutualised marketplace within which multiple financial backers, grouped in syndicates, come together to pool and spread risk. These underwriters, or "members", are a collection of both corporations and private individuals, the latter being traditionally known as "Names".


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The business underwritten at Lloyd's is predominantly general insurance and reinsurance, although a small number of syndicates write term life insurance. The market has its roots in marine insurance and was founded by Edward Lloyd at his coffee house on Tower Street in 1688. Today, it has a dedicated building on Lime Street which is Grade I listed. Traditionally business is transacted at each syndicate's "box" in the underwriting "Room" within this building, with the policy document being known as a "slip", but in more recent years it has become increasingly common for business to be conducted outside of the Lloyd's building itself, including remotely.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The market's motto is "Fidentia", Latin for "confidence", and it is closely associated with the Latin phrase "uberrima fides", or "utmost good faith", representing the relationship between underwriters and brokers.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Having survived multiple scandals and significant challenges through the second half of the 20th century, most notably the asbestosis affair, Lloyd's today promotes its strong financial "chain of security" available to promptly pay all valid claims. This chain consists of £55.2 billion of syndicate-level assets, £31bn of members' "funds at Lloyd's" and £4.9bn in a third mutual link which includes the "Central Fund" and which is under the control of the Council of Lloyd's.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: In 2021 there were 75 syndicates managed by 50 "managing agencies" that collectively wrote £39.2bn of gross premiums on risks placed by 388 registered brokers. Around half of Lloyd's premiums emanate from North America and around one-quarter from Europe. Direct insurance represented 63 per cent of the premiums, mostly covering property and casualty (liability), while the remaining 37 per cent was reinsurance.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The market began in Lloyd's Coffee House, owned by Edward Lloyd, on Tower Street in the City of London. The first reference to it can be traced to the "London Gazette" in 1688. The establishment was a popular place for sailors, merchants, and ship-owners, and Lloyd catered to them with reliable shipping news. The coffee house soon became recognised as an ideal place for obtaining marine insurance. The shop evolved into a meeting place for people of all types of maritime occupations. They would make bets on what ships would make it back to port. Soon, the captains on ships that were suggested to never come back were making bets on other ships a making sure that their ships never came back. It was the start of insurance. During this time, it was a hotspot also frequented by mariners involved in the slave trade. Historian Eric Williams noted that "Lloyd's, like other insurance companies, insured slaves and slave ships, and was vitally interested in legal decisions as to what constituted 'natural death' and 'perils of the sea'." Lloyd's obtained a monopoly on maritime insurance related to the slave trade and maintained it until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Many years later, during the 2020 George Floyd protests, Lloyd's issued a statement, apologising "for the role played by the Lloyd's market in the 18th and 19th century slave trade — an appalling and shameful period of English history, as well as our own."


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Just after Christmas 1691, the small club of marine insurance underwriters relocated to No. 16 Lombard Street; a blue plaque on the site commemorates this. This arrangement carried on until 1773, long after the death of Edward Lloyd in 1713, when the participating members of the insurance arrangement formed a committee and underwriter John Julius Angerstein acquired two rooms at the Royal Exchange in Cornhill for "The Society of Lloyd's".


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The Royal Exchange was destroyed by fire in 1838, forcing Lloyd's into temporary offices at South Sea House, Threadneedle Street. The Royal Exchange was rebuilt by 1844, but many of Lloyd's early records were lost in the blaze. In 1871, the first Lloyd's Act was passed in Parliament which gave the business a sound legal footing. Around that time, it was unusual for a Lloyd's syndicate to have more than five or six backers; this lack of underwriting capacity meant Lloyd's was losing many of the larger risks to rival insurance companies. A marine underwriter named Frederick Marten is credited for first identifying this issue and creating the first "large syndicate", initially of 12 capacity providers. By the 1880s Marten's syndicate had outgrown many of the major insurance companies outside Lloyd's.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: On 18 April 1906, a major earthquake and resulting fires destroyed over 80 per cent of the city of San Francisco. This event was to have a profound influence on building practices, risk modelling and the insurance industry.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Lloyd's losses from the earthquake and fires were substantial, even though the writing of insurance business overseas was viewed with some wariness at the time. While some insurance companies were denying claims for fire damage under their earthquake policies or "vice versa", one of Lloyd's leading underwriters, Cuthbert Heath, famously instructed his San Francisco agent to "pay all of our policy-holders in full, irrespective of the terms of their policies". The prompt and full payment of all claims helped to cement Lloyd's reputation for reliable claim payments and as an important trading partner for US brokers and policyholders. It was estimated that around 90 per cent of the damage to the city was caused by the resultant fires and as such, since the 1906 "fire following earthquake" has generally been a specified insured peril under most policies. Heath is also credited for introducing the now widely used "excess of loss" reinsurance protection for insurers following the San Francisco quake.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Heath had become an underwriting member of Lloyd's in 1880, upon reaching the minimum age of 21, on J. S. Burrows' syndicate. Within a year he was underwriting for himself on a three-man syndicate; in 1883 he also opened a brokerage business. In 1885, he wrote the first fire reinsurance contract, reinsuring the Hand in Hand Insurance Company and marking the start of Heath's push to diversify the market into "non-marine" business. He also wrote Lloyd's first burglary insurance policy, its first "all risks" jewellery policy and invented "jewellers' block" cover. Later, during World War I he offered air-raid insurance, protecting against the risk of German strategic bombing.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: A subsequent Lloyd's Act in 1911 set out the Society's objectives, which include the promotion of its members' interests and the collection and dissemination of information.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: A year later in April 1912 Lloyd's suffered perhaps its most famous loss: the sinking of the "Titanic". It was insured for £1 million, which represented 20 per cent of the entire market's capacity, making it the largest marine risk ever insured. The record of its sinking in the 1912 "Loss Book" is on display in the Lloyd's building.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The Society moved into its first owned, dedicated building in 1928. It was located at 12 Leadenhall Street and had been designed by Sir Edwin Cooper.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Later that year, when Lloyd's had around 6,000 members on 300 syndicates, Hurricane Betsy struck the Gulf of Mexico coastlines, costing the market over £50 million. The catastrophe halted the capital that hitherto had been pouring into Lloyd's, and twice as many members left between 1965 and 1968 as had left over the prior eight years. It was soon realised that the membership of the Society, which had been largely made up of market participants, was too small in relation to the market's capitalisation and the risks that it was taking on.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Lloyd's response was to commission a secret internal inquiry in 1968, headed by Lord Cromer, a former Governor of the Bank of England. This report advocated the widening of membership to non-market participants, including non-British subjects and then women, and the reduction of the onerous capitalisation requirements (thus creating a minor investor known as a "mini-Name"). The report also drew attention to the danger of conflicts of interest. The liability of the individual Names was unlimited, and thus all their personal wealth and assets were at risk.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: During the 1970s, a number of issues arose which were to have significant influence on the course of the Society. The first was the tax structure in the UK: for a time, capital gains were taxed at up to 40 per cent (nil on gilts); earned income was taxed in the top bracket at 83 per cent, and investment income in the top bracket at 98 per cent. Lloyd's income counted as earned income, even for Names who did not work at Lloyd's, and this heavily influenced the direction of underwriting: in short, it was desirable for syndicates to make a (small) underwriting loss but a (larger) investment gain. The investment gain was typically achieved by "bond washing" or "gilt stripping": selling the gilt or other bond cum dividend and buying it back ex-dividend, thus forfeiting the interest income in exchange for a tax-free capital gain. Syndicate funds were also moved offshore (which later created problems through fraud and self-dealing).


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Because Lloyd's was a tax shelter as well as an insurance market, the second issue affecting it was an increase in its external membership: by the end of the 1970s, the number of passive investors dwarfed the number of underwriters working in the market. Third, during the decade a number of scandals had come to light, including the collapse of F. H. "Tim" Sasse's non-marine syndicate 762, which had highlighted both the lack of regulation and the lack of legal powers of the Committee of Lloyd's (as it was then) to manage the Society.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The collapse of the Sasse syndicate came after it wrote a "binding authority" in 1975 that delegated underwriting authority to Florida-based expatriate Dennis Harrison to write property and fire risks through his Den-Har Underwriters agency, even though Den-Har was not an approved Lloyd's coverholder (a fact noticed neither by Sasse nor Lloyd's Non-Marine Association). Den-Har had suspected Mafia links and many of the risks written were rigged: typically dilapidated buildings in slums such as New York's south Bronx, which soon burned down after being insured for large sums.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Once the three-year Lloyd's accounting period passed, the 110 Names on syndicate 762 were told they faced substantial losses, from mostly fraudulent claims. Sasse's reinsurer, the Instituto de Resseguros do Brasil (IRB), refused to pay its share of the fraudulent losses. The Names (few in number for such large losses) took legal action and ultimately paid only £6.25m of £15m of Den-Har claims under the 1976 year, leaving the Corporation of Lloyd's to pay the remainder. The Corporation also paid the near £7m loss for 1977.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Sasse had also been one of 57 underwriters on other syndicates that wrote loss-making "computer leasing" policies in the late 1970s. These claims ultimately ran above $450m, wiping out more than half the entire market's profit in a single year.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Problems also developed out of the Oakley Vaughan agency run by brothers Edward and Charles St George, which had written far more business than its capacity allowed in order to invest premium to take advantage of high interest rates. By writing swathes of business regardless of whether the premiums were adequate, the St Georges left their Names with serious losses. Lloyd's had commissioned investigations into Oakley Vaughan, but investigators were denied access to the books and relied only on reassurances that the agency was profitable.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Arising simultaneously with these developments were wider issues: first, in the US, an ever-widening interpretation by the courts of insurance coverage in relation to workers' compensation for asbestosis-related claims, which created a huge hole in Lloyd's loss-payment reserves, which was initially not recognised and then not acknowledged. Second, by the end of the decade, almost all of the market agreements, such as the Joint Hull Agreement, which were effectively cartels mandating minimum terms, had been abandoned under pressure of competition. Third, new specialised policies had arisen which had the effect of concentrating risk: these included "run-off" policies, under which the liability of previous underwriting years would be transferred to the current year, and "time and distance" policies, whereby reserves would be used to buy a guarantee of future income.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: In 1980, Sir Henry Fisher was commissioned by the Council of Lloyd's to produce the foundation for a new Lloyd's Act. The recommendations of his report addressed the "democratic deficit" and the lack of regulatory muscle.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Immediately after the passing of the 1982 Act, evidence came to light and internal disciplinary proceedings were commenced against a number of underwriters who had allegedly siphoned money from their syndicates to their own accounts. These individuals included a deputy chairman of Lloyd's and some of its leading underwriters. Successful marine underwriter Ian Posgate, who at one point had written 20 per cent of the Lloyd's marine market, was expelled under suspicions but later acquitted of criminal charges. His name remained tarnished and he did not return to the market, retiring to run his Oxfordshire farm until his death in 2017 aged 87. A greater debacle arose when Peter Cameron-Webb and Peter Dixon, of PCW Underwriting Agencies, allegedly defrauded their business of some $60m through rigged reinsurance transactions and fled to the United States, never to return.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Lloyd's also faced action from Names on C. J. Warrilow's syndicate 553, which had chronically exceeded its underwriting capacity in the early 1980s and failed to adequately reinsure the huge quantity of risks it was taking on. The solution was to create a new company in 1990 into which these liabilities could be reinsured in order to relieve the Warrilow Names. This entity was named Centrewrite Ltd and in 1993 it assumed Warrilow's 1985 and prior years' liabilities, separately also offering "estate protection plans" (EPPs) for resigned Names. Tens of thousands of Lloyd's Names bought these reinsurance policies.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: It has long been normal for one Lloyd's syndicate to reinsure another, but when Piper Alpha, a North Sea oil rig, exploded on 6 July 1988 causing an initial $1.4bn loss, the practice had become so widespread that the underwriters in Lime Street initially had no idea how extensive their exposure was: the loss was passed around in what became known as the London market excess of loss (LMX) "spiral" and claim values escalated out of control.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The rig's operator, Occidental Petroleum, bought a direct insurance policy from Lloyd's underwriters, who then passed part of their shares of the risk on to other syndicates via reinsurance. Those reinsurers then in turn reinsured part of the risk out to other reinsurance underwriters within Lloyd's (known as "retrocessionaires"), and so on. Consequently, many syndicates, especially those writing a large amount of excess of loss reinsurance, became exposed to the same claim multiple times through multiple layers in the spiral. Other catastrophes, including Hurricane Hugo and the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill in 1989, also went into the spiral.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Some of the leading LMX reinsurers at the time that suffered serious spiral losses included the numerous syndicates managed by the Gooda Walker agency, Devonshire syndicate 216, Rose Thomson Young 255, R. J. Bromley 475, and Patrick Fagan's already challenged Feltrim syndicates 540 and 542. Gooda Walker syndicate 298 became the first fatal casualty, with 13,500 policies being exposed to the Piper Alpha disaster alone and its 1989 account producing a 650 per cent loss on capacity; Feltrim followed with a 550 per cent loss on capacity. Roy Bromley, underwriter of syndicate 475, later committed suicide after being dismissed by his Board and reportedly becoming distressed at his operation's mounting losses.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Not all excess of loss writers succumbed to the LMX spiral; in fact the spiral was relatively confined to a minority of such syndicates. Among the prominent reinsurers that remained profitable throughout the spiral were C. F. Palmer syndicate 314, M. H. Cockell 269/570 and D. P. Mann 435, while G. S. Christensen 958 reported only a slight loss in 1989 but healthy profits in 1990 and 1991.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The early to mid-1990s saw the continuation of Lloyd's most traumatic period in its history that had begun with the explosion on Piper Alpha. Unexpectedly large legal awards in US courts for punitive damages led to substantial claims on asbestos, pollution and health hazard (APH) policies, some dating as far back as the 1940s. Many of these policies were open-peril policies, meaning that they covered any claim not specifically excluded. Other policies (called standard, or broad) only cover stated perils, such as fire.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The classic example of "long-tail" insurance risks is asbestosis/mesothelioma claims under employers' liability or workers' compensation policies. An employee at an industrial plant may have been exposed to asbestos in the 1960s, fallen ill 20 years later and claimed compensation from his former employer in the 1990s. The employer would report a claim to the insurance company that wrote the policy in the 1960s. However, because the insurer did not fully understand the nature of the future risk back in the 1960s, it and its reinsurers would not have properly priced or reserved for it. In the case of Lloyd's, this resulted in the bankruptcy of thousands of individual investors who indemnified general liability policies written from the 1940s to the mid-1970s for companies with exposure to asbestosis claims.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: It may not be immediately clear how current members of current Lloyd's syndicates, which accept business one year at a time, could be liable to pay historical claims. This came about as a result of the Lloyd's accounting practice known as reinsurance to close (RITC).


title: Lloyd's of London

text: A member "joined" a syndicate for one calendar year only, known as the "annual venture". At the end of the year, the syndicate as an ongoing trading entity was effectively disbanded. However, usually the syndicate re-formed for the next calendar year with the same identifying number and more or less the same membership. Since claims can take time to be reported and then paid, the profit or loss for each syndicate took time to realise. The practice at Lloyd's was to wait three years (that is, 36 months from the beginning of the year in which the business was written) before "closing" the year for accounting purposes and declaring a result.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: To calculate the profit or loss, reserves were set aside for future claims payments, for claims that had already been notified but not yet paid, as well as estimated amounts for claims that had been incurred but not reported (IBNR). This estimation is difficult and can be inaccurate; in particular, long-tail liability policies tend to produce claims long after the policies are written.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: The reserve for future claims liabilities was set aside in an unusual way. The syndicate bought a RITC policy to pay any future claims; the premium was equal to the amount of the reserve. This transaction allowed the year to be closed, and the syndicate's profit or loss declared. The reinsurer was always another Lloyd's syndicate(s), often the succeeding year of the same syndicate: the members of syndicate '1' in 1985 reinsured the future claim liabilities for members of syndicate '1' in 1984. The membership might be the same, or it might have changed.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: In this manner, liability for past losses could be transferred year after year until it reached the current syndicate. A member joining a syndicate with a long history of such transactions could – and often did – pick up liability for losses on policies written decades previously. As long as the reserves had been accurately estimated, and the appropriate RITC premium paid every year, then all would have been well, but in many cases this had not been possible: no-one could have predicted the surge in APH losses. Therefore, the amounts of money transferred from earlier years by successive RITC premiums to cover these losses were grossly insufficient, and the current members had to pay the shortfall.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: As a result, a great many Names whose syndicates wrote long-tail liability at Lloyd's faced significant financial loss or ruin by the late 1980s to mid-1990s.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: It was alleged that in the early 1980s some Lloyd's officials began a recruitment programme to enroll new Names to help capitalise Lloyd's prior to the expected onslaught of APH claims. This allegation became known as "recruit to dilute": in other words, recruit more Names to dilute the losses. When the huge extent of asbestosis losses came to light in the early 1990s, for the first time in Lloyd's history large numbers of members either were unable to pay the claims or refused, many alleging that they were the victims of fraud, misrepresentation, and/or negligence. The opaque system of accounting at Lloyd's made it difficult, if not impossible, for many Names to understand the extent of the liability that they personally and their syndicates had subscribed to.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Also, numerous underwriters of long-tail non-marine business, concerned at their exposures to the impending asbestosis crisis, had sought to reinsure their liabilities with other carriers. Twenty syndicates, including Lloyd's deputy chairman Murray Lawrence's, paid millions of pounds in premiums to Richard H. M. Outhwaite to assume approximately 80 per cent of the market's asbestos exposure on his syndicate 317. This ended in disaster for Outhwaite's Names, whose previously healthy profits were wiped out and then some.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: Another asbestosis-hit operation, Pulbrook syndicates 90/334, had taken out reinsurance in 1981 on its general liability business with Merrett syndicate 418; however, in 1990 Stephen Merrett (who by now controlled Pulbrook) won an arbitration ruling to void that arrangement due to non-disclosure of the extent of asbestos exposure, leaving the Pulbrook Names without cover for their losses of £100,000 each on average. Even earlier, in 1974, the underwriter of R. W. Sturge syndicate 210, Ralph Rokeby-Johnson, who specialised in American industrial risks, bought "stop-loss" reinsurance from Fireman's Fund and Kemper Insurance in the US on Sturge's pre-1969 exposures that were accumulating into the present. This contract developed so poorly that Fireman's Fund later sought its own stop-loss cover for the losses assumed from Sturge. Rokeby-Johnson later prompted Lloyd's to create a working party on asbestosis.


title: Lloyd's of London

text: During the mid-1990s the market was forced to restructure. Under the chairmanship of Sir David Rowland and chief executive Peter Middleton, an ambitious plan entitled "Reconstruction and Renewal" (R&R) was produced in 1995, with proposals for separating the ongoing Lloyd's from its past losses. Liabilities for all pre-1993 business (other than life assurance) were to be compulsorily transferred (by RITC) into a special vehicle named Equitas (which would require the approval of the UK's Department of Trade and Industry) at a cost of around $21bn. Many Names faced large bills, but the plan also provided for a settlement of their disputes, a tax on recent profits, and the write-off of nearly $5bn owed in the form of "debt credits", skewed towards those with the worst losses. The plan was debated at length, modified, and eventually strongly supported by the Association of Lloyd's Members (ALM) and most leaders of Names' action groups. New CEO Ron Sandler was instrumental in its implementation. Money was raised in many ways, including the sale and leaseback of the Lloyd's building, and a tax on future business. Individual offers of settlement were accepted by 95 per cent of Names. The past liabilities on the 1992 and prior years were transferred to Equitas in September 1996, including those under Lioncover and Centrewrite.