Action groups ‘should face more checks’

CAMPAIGNERS have called for greater scrutiny of organisations set up to sue banks on behalf of small firms.

The SME Alliance has also urged business owners to be cautious when signing up with such action groups. Its move comes after The Mail on Sunday raised questions about a group set up to sue the Royal Bank of Scotland over mistreatment by its turnaround division.

Concerns over the RBS-GRG Business Action Group, which claims to represent more than 500 small firms it says were destroyed by RBS’s Global Restructuring Group, include the involvement of Gerard Walsh, 60, who was described as a ‘fraudster’ by the Jersey Royal Court in 2014.

He denies any wrongdoing and sources close to him say he was neither a witness nor a defendant in the case and did not have an opportunity to contest the findings.

Sources say Walsh is at the top of the organisation. But the action group describes him as a ‘voluntary adviser’.

The group had claimed Lord Pannick QC, of Blackstone Chambers, was working on the case. His name was later removed from its website.

SME Alliance director Nikki Turner said proper scrutiny ‘would be good’ and urged people to do ‘due diligence’.

A spokesman said the action group has a good relationship with the SME Alliance, adding: ‘We are run by and for our members, on a voluntary basis, with great economy, and in service of a worthy cause.’ The group says it will be putting itself forward to be regulated.