Case No. IP-2016-000182

117.MML faced a dilemma in choosing its definition of financial ‘mutual’. The fact that there were several possibilities to choose from was already a difficulty. MML could not simply go for a financial organisation without shareholders because that would have covered Forces Mutual. The next most straightforward option would have been a financial organisation owned by all its customers. This would have been in close conformity with the dictionary definitions. But too many organisations calling themselves mutuals – and which MML’s witnesses acknowledged to be mutuals – fell outside that definition. These included Royal London which, as Mr Shaw confirmed, alone accounts for about 75% of the assets in the mutual insurance sector. It has 8.8 million policyholders, of whom only 1.2 million are members. At the trial MML chose as its class financial organisations solely owned and controlled by some or all of its customers.118.The evidence does not support MML’s claim to collective goodwill held by that class because the public did not in April 2016 recognise any such class as being distinct. The term ‘mutual’ had not acquired a narrow meaning used to define the ownership structure of that class. I do not accept that any significant part of the public held the belief that that in the context of financial organisations ‘mutual’ meant that it must be owned solely by all or some of its customers. 119.In my view the shared goodwill asserted by MML did not exist.