ponpokku (13June2012) wrote:Re Thread: [Ferrari accident] Should assets of Ma Chi be frozen immediately for (re-)compensation?
it means TS too free. thats all.
i dont think our court of law can trial a man who died in the course of his unlawful act, unlike one who incurred debts at an earlier time and died later on. so there will be no blame, meaning he got no outstanding debts to repay, and the successor(s) to his property got zero liabilities to anyone. in the case of an earlier debt, generally speaking the benificiary can either choose to agree to inherit the properties along with the debts, or choose not to accept both. but of cos different places got different laws, might not always be the case.
so it is up to ma chi's family to decide whether or not to compensate the victims. and there's no obligations wadsoever on their side, just out of moral considerations.
- [emphasis added]
"so it is up to ma chi's family to decide whether or not to compensate the victims."
The accident was due to Ma Chi's criminal negligent/ reckless decision made when he was obviously alive (unless it can be proven that it was due to dysfunction of the Ferrari car).
Despite probable criminal culpability, Mr Ma obviously cannot be tried due to his currently deceased state, however, his deceased state DOES NOT preclude any aggrieved or creditor parties to seek compensation from his estate where assets exists and as administered by an administrator before any payouts are made in accordance to the will of the deceased (beneficiaries).
The purpose of administering the 'estate' as I understand is so that a deceased person's accounts can be lawfully and transparently closed with claimants and beneficiaries being 'paid' according to legitimate terms and conditions.
If the estate is owing, it is unlikely that any beneficiary would agree to inherit this debt and as such, this debt is automatically written off. The important thing however, is for claimants (i.e. Ma Chi's motor insurer in this case who is liable to compensate all the victims) to secure whatever part of his estate in lieu of probable re-claim of damages to the victims from Ma Chi's estate in view of the fact that the accident was primarily caused by Ma Chi's flagrant disregard of traffic law thus allowing for the insurer to counter claim compensatory damages from Ma Chi's estate in so far that fund remain (the Public hospital that Ms Wu, Ma's passenger (GF?) should also make a competing claim for her hospitalization costs).
It is thus up to the local civil courts to decide the validity of the insurer's claim against Ma Chi's estate which his immediate family (probable beneficiaries) would most likely defend. The motor insurance 'general exclusions' clause, as you have just rightly pointed out, "an act committed in violation of any law" [NTUC income, T&C motor insurance, PDF] however, indemnifies the insurer from material loss consequent to victim payouts consequent to Ma Chi being solely responsible for the multi-fatality traffic accident, which should validate the insurer's counter claim against the estate of Ma Chi, of which a freezing of assets is the most viable option moving forward given to the fact that total damages would understandably take time to be assessed.
NTUC insurance is only used as a hypothetical insurer in this case (it seems popular with Singaporeans) but any insurer should thus see court order to freeze whatever assets are expected during such counter claim as the 'accident' was the consequence of Ma Chi's criminal negligence- thus damages owing by Ma Chi's estate and thus should not be recouped from a customer wide premium increase come 2013!
Once the funds in Ma Chi's estate are closed, redistributed and wired to China, then oops!, sorry folks, it would all be too late.
Ref:
- 'Motor insurance premiums continue to rise': "SINGAPORE : Motor insurance premiums will continue to go up this year as insurers look to recoup underwriting losses, said the president of the General Insurance Association of Singapore (GIA) Derek Teo." [CNA, 17Mar2011]
- 'Probate': "Receipt of probate is the first step in the legal process of administering the estate of a deceased person, resolving all claims and distributing the deceased person's property under a will." [Wikipedia]
PS: Pls dun say "wasting time", "too free"- if by writing, victims can get $5-10 more each day that is what they really deserve and that other insurance members shouldn't pay, insurers would not be so eager to under cut victim payouts because they perform their duties professionally- just the necessary admin work, the compensation is eventually by Ma Chi estate (unless of course his estate $$$ has run out- thus the need to freeze these assets ASAP)
Rgds
C6.
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Thread:
13Jun2012: [Ferrari accident] Should assets of Ma Chi be frozen immediately for (re-)compensation?
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