MP wants probe into £200m payout delay

AN influential MP has written to Treasury Select Committee chair Nicky Morgan asking her to probe a claim against RBS involving thousands of the bank’s small investors.

The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that investors who last year won a £200million payout from Royal Bank of Scotland – compensation for shares they feel they were duped into buying in 2008 – are still awaiting their money.

Signature Litigation, which is working on the case, has concerns about the firm at the centre of the mass claim – the RBS Shareholders Action Group – and its cofounder, Gerard Walsh. Branded a ‘fraudster’ by a Jersey court in 2014, he denies any wrongdoing.

The action group itself has filed a complaint against Signature to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Walsh is also a ‘voluntary adviser’ to the separate RBS GRG Business Action Group, which says it represents 500 small firms seeking to sue the bank.

Norman Lamb, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking, has told Morgan: ‘It is clear that the serious allegations raised must be thoroughly investigated.’

One of the small investors in the claim, John Greenwood, from Huddersfield, said: ‘The people involved in the management of the action group need to be questioned about this situation.’

Signature has warned of further possible delays to the payout.