By Cat MacLean, Partner & Head of Dispute Resolution
INTRODUCTION
This is clearly a great victory for Mr Carlyle after a long and punishing 7 years. However, when the celebrations are over, the key question that remains to be answered is whether the UK Supreme Court’s decision will have wider implications.
To date, victories by SMEs and individuals against banks have been few and far between. It has, of course, been an uphill battle for property developers and SMEs since the recession first hit, […]
RBS v Carlyle – Where Now?
RBS shareholder trial – Judge orders bank to produce Fred’s Private Emails
Royal Bank of Scotland has been given less than three weeks to hand over emails and other correspondence sent by former chief executive Fred Goodwin and former head of investment banking, Johnny Cameron, in the prelude to its October 2008 collapse.
In a hearing in the Royal Courts of Justice earlier this month, the Hon. Mr Justice Robert Hildyard, ordered the state-rescued bank and its lawyers Herbert Smith Freehills to produce evidence, including executive directors’ correspondence, emails and phone call […]
Guess who’s looking at your credit report …
Do you know who’s looking at your credit report – and are they entitled to be nosing around in your affairs? A businessman is calling for an investigation after discovering that some of the other parties in a commercial dispute he was embroiled in, had managed to get access to information about him from two of Britain’s credit reference agencies.
A large law firm and a team of private investigators acquired information about Bev Oates from the files of Callcredit […]
RBS Sorry For ‘Incorrect’ Evidence To MPs
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has apologised for telling MPs that a controversial division of the bank, accused of deliberately closing viable firms, was not seeking to make money from its activities.
The development came to light when the Treasury Select Committee released a series of letters between its chairman Andrew Tyrie and bank chairman Sir Philip Hampton relating to a hearing in June.
The Committee was told then by senior bank directors it was not the case that the Global […]
Judge Takes Pity on RBS Bankers who Committed £3m Fraud
Two RBS bankers have walked away from a £3m property fraud without having to complete jail time because the judge believes they have already “suffered” as they were “embarrassed” by the incident.
Raymond Pask, 54, and his employee Andrew Ratnage, 50, established a series of fake companies in the names of Pask’s relatives so they could apply for mortgages to buy and renovate homes and then sell them for a profit.
The loan applications were submitted to the bankers’ employers so […]
Bankers Escape Justice
Even after PPI, forex and the financial crisis, many of the directors who presided over scandal remain in public life.
There was a time when bank bosses took at face value Ogden Nash’s satirical poem Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer. Not any more. These days most bank executives realise they are different in that their actions can blow up the global economy, bring nations to their knees and impoverish millions.
City watchdogs say they also grasp that global […]
Whistleblower Royal Bank of Scotland escapes Libor fine
Royal Bank of Scotland has escaped €115m of fines for alerting the European commission’s competition watchdog to two attempts to fix the prices of key interest rates.
RBS, which is 81%-owned by the taxpaer, was fined £390m last year for manipulating Libor by regulators in the US and the UK. It was given immunity from one €110m fine after telling the commission it had tried to influence Swiss franc interest rates with JP Morgan. The Wall Street bank was fined […]
Six years after Lehman’s crash, US and UK play out next financial crisis
War game designed to test readiness of central banks as exercise will stress-test new global regulations.
The top financial brass from the Treasuries and central banks of Britain and the US are to take part in a war game, behind closed doors in Washington on Monday, to test how they would handle another Lehman Brothers-style banking crisis .
Six years after the financial earthquake that led to the multibillion-pound taxpayer bailouts of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, the […]
FOS- SME Bank Loan Disputes Jump By A Third
The number of small businesses asking the Financial Ombudsman Service to intervene in disputes over bank loan and overdraft facilities has jumped by a third in the last year, according to LDF, a leading finance provider.
Figures show that the number of complaints received by the FOS from small businesses about loans and overdrafts from banks increased from 612 in 2012 to 816 in 2013.*
LDF points out that the actual number of disputes between businesses and banks over their loan […]
Banker Pleads Guilty Over Libor Manipulation
A senior banker from a British bank has admitted conspiracy to defraud over the Libor manipulation.
The banker is the first person in Britain to plead guilty to the offence. The person cannot be named for legal reasons.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said in a statement: “A senior banker from a leading British bank pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court on 3 October 2014 to conspiracy to defraud in connection with manipulating Libor.
“This arises out of the Serious Fraud Office […]
Man wins landmark legal battle after going £2.67 overdrawn
Oliver Foster-Burnell, 28, has won a landmark legal battle against Lloyds Bank – which could open the floodgates for a £30 billion payout. After going a few pounds over his £500 overdraft during a gap between employment contracts Lloyds Bank started charging him £20 a day and despite desperate phone calls he was hit with penalties of £743.
The unfair charges in 2008 meant he spiralled into debt after defaulting on other credit cards. But after getting his finances back on track […]
Lloyds and Barclays top bank complaints
New figures show two banks attracted over 56,000 new complaints in first half of this year.
Lloyds Banking Group is the banking group the Financial Ombudsman Service received most complaints about, according to its latest figures, while Barclays generated the highest percentage of complaints per customer.
Between January and June this year, over 30,000 people complained to the Ombudsman about the Lloyds group, which includes Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland. And nearly 27,000 people complained about Barclays.
The Ombudsman is where […]
This years biggest Banking Bonuses
Foreign exchange traders are traditionally among those receiving the biggest bonuses, but an industry-wide rigging scandal and slumps in market activity will mean this year being especially lean.
According to data from Emolument, the salary benchmarking site, bonuses at banks’ foreign exchange divisions are expected fall by 43pc this year.
A number of large banks are under investigation for foreign exchange rigging, in a scandal that it is believed could potentially outstrip Libor in terms of fines.
Additionally, historically dismal levels of […]
SRA silent over ‘fake’ bank law firm probe
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has received complaints about individual in-house solicitors accused of involvement in sending letters purporting to be from independent law firms, as more banks admitted adopting the practice.
The regulator declined to say whether it will investigate, despite warning in July that in-house solicitors misleading customers in this way would breach the Code of Conduct.
Questions have been raised about the role of in-house legal teams in creating the letters since the Gazette revealed in June that Lloyds […]
RBS CEO Ross McEwan – Deception is Common Industry Practice
Britain’s biggest banks have admitted sending thousands of letters from fake debt collection agencies in a deliberate attempt to intimidate customers into paying up.
In a series of letters to the Commons Treasury committee, several of the biggest names in banking admit they have sent misleading letters to tens of thousands of customers who are struggling to repay their debts. They now face the prospect of a full-scale inquiry by MPs, who have condemned the ‘menacing’ practice. Andrew Tyrie, Tory […]
Bankers’ bonuses – 100 times higher than public sector
Bankers’ bonuses were more than a hundred times higher than public sector workers over the past year and grew at double the rate of those of the average UK worker, official figures have showed.
The average bonus for bankers and insurance workers was £13,300 between May last year to April, while that of public sector workers such as nurses and teachers was the lowest at around £100 on average. The figures are likely to prompt further calls for stricter rules […]
BOE prospect of interest rate rise in 2014
The prospect of a pre-Christmas increase in interest rates rose after two members of the Bank of England’s key policy-making body broke ranks and voted for higher borrowing charges.
City dealers said it was possible that rates could be lifted from their emergency level of 0.5% by the end of the year, as three years of unanimous 9-0 decisions at Threadneedle Street ended with Martin Weale and Ian McCafferty calling for the cost of borrowing to be raised by 0.25 percentage points.
Although the […]
George Osborne to reveal shake-up of SME loans
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/14a1ec8c-1cc4-11e4-88c3-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz39uXmlGpI
By Sam Fleming
Banks that reject loan applications from small and medium-sized companies will be forced to refer them online to other sources of funding. George Osborne, the chancellor, will on Wednesday confirm plans to legislate to improve SME access to finance as part of a series of measures that aim to encourage choice and competition in financial services.
The move comes as Britain struggles to boost competition in the banking sector: the four biggest banks control 85 per cent business […]
Banking sector slow to increase competition after new rules
A relaxation in the rules governing the creation of new banks is yet to lead to a dramatic increase in the number of new high street players being authorised by the City regulator.
Figures published by the Bank of England show little change in the annual approval rate for new banks since the introduction of rules last year, which mean that new banks need less capital to get started than they did in the past.
Five banks were authorised in the […]
Fred Goodwin legal bill costs taxpayers nearly £500k
TAXPAYERS have paid almost £500,000 in legal fees to defend disgraced former bank boss Fred Goodwin in a case which has not even come to court yet.
Law firms representing four former directors of Royal Bank of Scotland have already racked up £400,000 in defence costs over a lawsuit brought by shareholders.
And if the case does reach the courts, the final bill is expected to total tens of millions of pounds.
Mr Goodwin’s legal fees are being paid by the bank […]
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