Sun Insurance Company Limited has confirmed that a senior consultant’s engagement with the company has concluded, following his conviction on two counts of indecent assault, while declining to answer questions about the due diligence conducted before his appointment – a response that has drawn scrutiny of how fit and proper frameworks function in practice across Pacific insurance markets.
Mohammad Nouzab Fareed was most recently convicted on two counts of indecent assault by the Suva Magistrates Court and is currently on remand. Following the conviction, Sun Insurance issued a market announcement confirming that Fareed had been engaged as chief transformation consultant for a 20-month assignment, which had now concluded. According to FBC News, the company said the assignment had been successfully completed and described Fareed’s work in achieving the objectives set for him as “sterling.”
In response to questions from FBC News, Sun Insurance did not directly address whether Fareed had served as chief transformation officer or chief transformation consultant, instead referring reporters to its market announcement. The company said it was aware of the recent publicity surrounding Fareed and acknowledged the court’s decision, but stressed the matter related to his previous employment and not to Sun Insurance’s operations, financial reporting, or customers. The board said it would not comment further as the legal process remains ongoing. Questions about whether the board was aware of criminal proceedings at the time of appointment, and what due diligence was conducted, were not addressed.
The title question carries regulatory weight beyond the labelling. Sun Insurance’s 2025 announcement had introduced Fareed as chief transformation officer, describing him as playing a vital role in supporting the leadership team and driving the company’s transformation agenda – a materially different characterisation from the post-conviction market announcement describing a concluded 20-month consulting assignment.
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The Reserve Bank of Fiji’s (RBF) Insurance Supervision Policy Statement No. 7 (ISPS 7) – the operative fit and proper framework for all insurers and brokers licensed under Fiji’s Insurance Act 1998 – contains an explicit provision on this exact distinction. ISPS 7 states that a responsible person should not be acting as a consultant or advisor for the insurer to which they are being appointed, and that should a consultant be appointed as a responsible person, they must cease their consulting role. If Fareed was classified as a consultant, that provision applied directly. If he was classified as senior management under a different title, a separate set of character assessment obligations applied. Sun Insurance’s inconsistent use of both titles across its own public communications leaves the applicable framework unresolved.
Under ISPS 7’s good character assessment, boards are required to consider whether a responsible person has been convicted of a criminal offence, with a disqualified person defined as anyone convicted of an offence in Fiji or elsewhere in respect of dishonest conduct. The policy also places an active notification obligation on insurers: if a company forms a belief that a responsible person is not fit and proper, it must inform the RBF, stating either why the person remains in position or confirming their departure. The RBF holds the power to direct an insurer to revoke such an appointment.
Sun Insurance, listed on the South Pacific Stock Exchange (SPX) since 2024 and licensed by the RBF, engaged Fareed after the High Court overturned his 2021 indecent assault conviction in 2022. The original conviction resulted in a 14-month sentence suspended for two years before Justice Salesi Temo allowed Fareed’s appeal and acquitted him.
The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) has confirmed that significant shareholders raised concerns in writing to Sun Insurance, and subsequently to both the SPX and the RBF, with FWRM stating that none of those bodies responded directly. “It is disturbing that the RBF did not even apply its own ‘fit and proper’ fitness test policy to the hiring of employees. The silence, lack of curiosity, and foot-shuffling of SPX and RBF, whose primary responsibilities include market regulation, is astonishing,” said FWRM executive director Nalini Singh. She characterised the failure as systemic. “When regulatory protections and barriers repeatedly fail to respond, the system itself must be reformed,” she said.
Sun Insurance is a significant market participant. The company reported a net profit before tax of $16.88 million for the financial year ended December 31, 2025, a 101% increase on the prior year, with gross premiums of $54.34 million and a market capitalisation of approximately $306 million. For the first half of 2026, the company recorded a profit before tax of $7.85 million, up 11%, on insurance revenue of $27.02 million, up 21%. The company has more than 550 shareholders.
For New Zealand brokers placing business with Pacific-licensed insurers, the case raises a direct due diligence question: if a licensed insurer’s prudential regulator does not enforce its own published executive fitness standards in response to written shareholder warnings, what practical assurance does that regulatory framework provide?
New Zealand’s fit and proper standard under the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 (IPSA) requires that board members and senior managers of a licensed insurer have both the competence and integrity to carry out their functions, and compliance is continuous. Proposed IPSA amendments would require Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) approval before appointments of relevant officers and mandatory notification to RBNZ if an insurer has reasonable grounds to believe a relevant officer is not fit and proper.
The Fijian insurance industry recorded gross premiums of $476.0 million in 2024, an all-time high, according to the RBF – a market whose governance mechanisms are now under active public scrutiny. FWRM is calling for all SPX-listed companies to adopt a mandatory zero-tolerance policy toward Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment (SEAH) and has offered leadership training to those companies.
