Bring The Shred to the dock
Union demand ex-RBS boss and sidekicks are brought to court over financial meltdown DAYS AFTER BARCLAYS CHARGES, PRESSURES GROW FOR FRESH PROBE INTO DISGRACED CHIEF AND HIS CRONIES
Calls are growing for a fresh criminal investigation into Britain’ s most notorious banker.
Fred“The Shred” Goodwin’s reckless reign at RBS was a major reason for the 2008 financial crisis yet he escaped scot-free.
Now Britain’s biggest union want him brought to court.
Unite claim Goodwin and other RBS bosses were let off the hook over the way shareholders were allegedly duped into a £12billion rights cash g rab as the bank teetered on the brink.
The call was made after Barclays and four of their leaders were charged with criminal offences following a five-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Many believe alleged misdeeds by Barclays fal l short of what went on at RBS, whose infamous turnaround di v i s ion, G loba l Restructuring Group (GRG), face paying £ 400million in claims from 16,000 businesses exploited by bankers.
Unite national officer for finance Dominic Hook believes it was Goodwin and his cronies who caused the financial meltdown of 2008 – but got off scot-free.
Goodwin, 58, spends his days playing golf and tinkering with old cars at his Edinburgh mansion while drawing a £342,500-a-year pension.
Yet he was the man at the wheel when RBS expanded aggressively to become the world’s largest company by assets and the fifth-largest bank by stock market value.
He was also in charge as the bank, together with Fortis and Banco Santander, audaciously bought Dutch bank ABN Amro from under the nose of Barclays in 2007, a deal many believe led to RBS’s near ruin a year later when they were forced into a £45billion government bailout to save them from collapse.
The worst that Goodwin has faced is the humiliation of having his knighthood stripped from him in 2012.
The situation has infuriated 9000 private shareholders who have spent years bringing a legal case against him and the bank.
Hook said: “Following the decision to go after Barclays and their bosses, there’s a very strong case for the authorities to look again at allegations of wrongdoing at RBS by senior directors, including Fred Goodwin.
“There’s a feeling among the public that there’s unfinished business as to who was culpable for the financial meltdown a decade ago which nearly brought the UK to its economic knees.
“It shouldn’t be forgotten that the long-suffering taxpayer shelled out billions to keep the financial system af loat and we’re still dealing with the aftermath in 2017.
“Unite said last year that it was a monumental injustice when the Crown Office confirmed there’d be no charges against the former RBS directors and the union have no reason to change that view today. Quite the contrary.”
Unite’s views were echoed by businessman Neil Mitchell, who has campa igned aga inst a l leged corruption and cover-ups within RBS.
Glaswegian Mitchell, an RBS shareholder, has claimed bosses like Goodwin should have been put on trial for fraud.
He bel ieves there was worse behaviour at RBS than at Barclays.
He thinks RBS bosses were let off because David Cameron’s government, with George Osborne as chancellor, would not have funded an SFO probe into a bank the taxpayer held a massive stake in.
Mitchell said: “For the SFO to mount an investigation like they’ve just done on Barclays, they would have needed to ask the Treasury for extra funds to pay for additional resources like police officers and forensic accountants.
“The chancellor had the right to approval but George Osborne would never have allowed an investigation by the SFO or police forces into RBS or Lloyds, who took over HBOS in the banking crisis of 2008.
“But approval was given to investigate Barclays. The distinction is that RBS and Lloyds were both state-supported and, in the case of RBS, are still state majority-owned.”
Mitchell’s Torex firm were put into administration after dealings with GRG. He claims bosses deliberately
There’s a feeling that there is unfinished business as to who was culpable for the financial meltdown
forced his £ 600million f irm into administration in 2007 then plotted to sell it off on the cheap.
Leaked documents later showed that even when business customers had not defaulted on their loans, RBS staff could find a way to “provoke a default” that could generate huge fees for the bank.
Mitchell believes the Fraud Act 2006 was robust enough to prosecute the bankers. He claimed: “They hoodwinked everybody and that was fraud.
“People said we don’t have sufficient laws to charge these people but the Fraud Act could have been applied.”
Mitchell said it was significant that the conviction of HBOS manager Lynden Scourf ield and f ive city financial accomplices for a £245million scam earlier this year had nothing to do with the SFO.
He said: “We only had the HBOS criminal investigation because the commissioner of Thames Valley Police scraped together £7million for his local budget and went ahead with no support from the SFO.”
Former business secretary Vince Cable, appointed two years after the crash of 2008, previously hit out at the “obscene” £ 6.5million that RBS spent to legally defend the civil claim by shareholders against the bank.
He said yesterday that he had done his bit by referring the case of Fred Goodwin and RBS to the Crown Office, who took two years and spent £3million before deciding to take no action.
A parliamentary commission on banking standards recommended a criminal offence of reckless conduct in 2013 following outrage that no senior bank executive had been jailed for the damage they had done.
It was hoped the new law would help prosecutors when evidence they gathered fell just short of proving fraud.
Cable said: “They concluded that there was no case. Legislation has since been introduced to make reckless conduct by bankers, as opposed to fraud, a criminal offence. Goodwin and co cannot be charged retrospectively.”
SNP treasury team member Stewart Hosie said his party want to look at future toughening of banking law.
He said: “We’re always willing to look at any evidence that would lead to a toughening of banking regulation and laws to protect customers.”
Journalist Ian Fraser revealed the lives shattered by the conduct of RBS in his book, Shredded: Inside RBS, the Bank that Broke Britain.
He said: “My book showed a lot of small and medium-sized businesses who firmly believe they were the victims of criminal conduct by RBS.
“Leaked files later proved the bank operated a ‘ dash for cash’ scheme, which had an overarching policy of making profit by snuffing out small and medium sized companies.
“The possibility of criminal conduct at RBS before and after Goodwin’s time is worthy of further examination.”
Earlier this month, nearly 90 per cent of RBS shareholders battling for more compensation from the rights debacle accepted the bank’s offer of 82p a share.
Investors claimed they were misled by the former RBS boss, three ex- directors and the bank during the £12billion cash call in April 2008, weeks before the bank went into meltdown, wiping out investors’ money.
A judge left the door open for investors refusing the £ 200million settlement to revive proceedings if they could prove they have sufficient funding by July 31.
The Serious Fraud Office announced last week that Barclays’ ex- executives John Varley, Roger Jenkins, Thomas Kalaris and Richard Boath would face proceedings over a £7.3billion funding package raised from investors in Qatar and Abu Dhabi that saved the bank from nationalisation amid the 2008 meltdown.
The al legations centre on claims the bbank were guilty of “fifinancial assistance” – effectively lending mmoney to itself.
The Crown Office sasaid yesterday that theth door is still open to potential criminal proceedings.
The spokesman said: “The Crown will consider any relevant, credible information that meets the standards required for criminal cases.”
A spokesman for RBS said the bank had no comment to make on calls for fresh criminal proceedings.