Category Archives: Paul Moore

Paragraphs redacted from P&N Turner submission to PCoBS 24/08/12

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These are the paragraphs which were redacted by the Commission’s support staff.

  1. The example of bank misconduct we have lived through from 2003 (and continue to do so) is a microcosm of what happened to the whole sector. While we are not professionals in the financial sector, we have been forced to spend the last five years investigating aspects of the banking industry.
  2. Between 2002 – 2007 many SMEs whose accounts were ‘managed’ at HBOS Reading, were forced to use the services of a consultancy firm, Quayside Corporate Services (QS), or have their facilities withdrawn. QS had no affiliation to any trade body for consultants and employed the services of known embezzlers. The cost to the SMEs for these services were between £2000 and £30,000 per month + VAT and expenses. In many cases HBOS insisted QS personnel or its Director became directors of the SMEs and were given full fiduciary control.
  3. Once QS representatives had control of the SMEs, the Bank then ploughed millions of pounds into them. A lot of this money was used to facilitate luxury lifestyles for Bank employees, QS staff and the QS Director. Many of the companies subsequently failed and their assets were sold in pre-pack administration to new companies ultimately owned by The Sandstone Organisation (we are reliably informed as being controlled by the Bank) but run by the Director of QS and/or his staff.
  4. In late 2006 the Bank sent a team from Edinburgh to investigate the loan book at HBOS Reading. In early 2007 the manager responsible for most of the loan book was suspended and subsequently resigned. Between 2002 and 2008, the Bank caused at least 80 SMEs who had the involvement of QS personnel, to go into administration and/or liquidation. We are told the overall losses to the Bank because of events originating at HBOS Reading, runs to billions of pounds.
  5. In April 2007 HBOS closed the business accounts of P&NT who had also been made to use QS and had complained of serious irregularities between 2004-2006. They became suspicious of the Bank’s sudden and aggressive stance towards them and, because any investigation promised by the Bank had not actually been done, they commenced their own investigation into HBOS Reading. By August 2007 they had uncovered evidence of systemic fraud and identified other victims.
  6. In September 2007 P&NT wrote to the entire Board of HBOS setting out their findings to date. The Board rejected the allegations. Also in September 2007, P&NT tried to inform the FSA of the fraud. The FSA did not start any investigation until mid 2009. In November 2007 they reported the fraud to the Cambridge Police who were persuaded by HBOS not to investigate. In May 2010, Thames Valley Police (TVP) and SOCU initiated ‘Operation Hornet’ to investigate what happened at Reading having, by chance, come across the case at a routine meeting at the FSA. They were not asked to look into it.
  7. 9 people have been arrested thus far as a result of Operation Hornet and charges are expected in September 2012 for ‘Corruption’, ‘Money Laundering’ and ‘Conspiracy to Defraud.’ TVP have said HBOS Reading is potentially the biggest banking fraud in British History. The Bank (now Lloyds Banking Group (LBG)) still denies the Turner’s allegations and have refused to compensate any of the SMEs destroyed as victims of the fraud.
  8. HBOS/LBG have tried to evict the Turners from their family home 22 times between 2007 – after they started their investigation – and 2010. Legal costs for a senior Solicitor to attend 5 of the eviction hearings and to deal with matters relating to HBOS Reading, have been paid via a false account opened by the Bank in the name of the Turner’s business, Zenith Cafe Ltd (ZC). Neither the Solicitor nor his Firm were instructed in the eviction proceedings. Approximately £363,000 has been paid from the account to Denton Wilde Sapte (now SNR Denton). By August 2011, circa £250,000 in penalty interest and charges had been added to the account which then showed ZC owed over £600,000. LBG have said this is not a case of false accounting and the Turner’s should never have been sent details of the account. The FSA is still investigating the circumstances of this account over a year on.
  9. The Turner’s have spent the last 5 years investigating the fraud at Reading and other bank frauds. Despite the thousands of factual documents establishing irrefutable evidence of fraud originating at HBOS Reading they have supplied to the police and the FSA, it is a sad fact no authority has had the power or, it seems, the appetite, to make the Bank deal appropriately with the matter. LBG remains in denial and the victims have remained in limbo for years hoping the authorities would act.
  10. A Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards can only be of service to the Nation if the submissions and evidence it receives, is acted upon and not discarded because it comes from those who have individual and profound experiences of what has occurred over the last decade plus.
  11. From 2007, we have contacted (and in most cases submitted a lot of copy documentation to) nearly every agency and authority including the Treasury Select Committee, Constituent victims’ MPs, Government Departments, the Insolvency Service, the FRC, the CIB, HMRC, the senior Executives of the three Banks involved, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the FSA, the SFO, 3 police forces, two Prime Ministers and two Chancellors. Apart from Thames Valley Police (TVP) and specifically the ‘Operation Hornet’ Team, all have failed us with vigour.
  12. For example, we were recently told by a senior enforcement officer at the FSA, the Final Notice Public Censure of BoS, published on 9 March 2012, could have been published two years earlier but for the difficulty the FSA had getting the Bank to agree to it because of FSMA 2000 provisions.
  13. In an e-mail of 9th March 2012, Hector Sants personally advised us the 6 redacted paragraphs in the BoS Public Censure Notice, relate to HBOS Reading. Obviously we have not read the paragraphs and TVP have confirmed they have not read them either, though they were redacted to protect their investigation. The Bank has read them yet it continues to deny any malpractice at HBOS Reading over 5 years after it reported it as a ‘control issue’ to the FSA in ‘early 2007’ (see FSA ‘brief’ to TSC, March 2010).
  14. As a very serious example of how professional standards have reached rock bottom, we would ask the Commission how senior bankers: who are fully aware of the details of the fraud at Reading; who have read the redacted paragraphs in the FSA Public Censure; who have no doubt read Hansard on the debate about HBOS Reading of June 2009; and, most importantly, have clear evidence of how the billions of pounds the Bank lost because of the practices utilised in the HBOS Reading debacle, are able to repeatedly deny the fraud and therefore not compensate but persecute its customers?
  15. We give as an example of this, UKFI which, although it is not a bank per se, it was charged with protecting the interests of the public’s share in two of our biggest banks.
  16. We can confirm that, when we attempted to approach UKFI in 2009 to make them aware of the serious criminal activity in HBOS, which has since resulted in a 2 year major criminal investigation which could potentially damage the reputation of Lloyds Banking Group, we met with a number of hurdles – not least that UKFI has no contact phone number in the public domain.
  17. After a series of e-mails to the PR Company (who were very polite but who would not give us contact details for John Kingman or Glen Moreno) we eventually worked out the e-mail addresses and sent the information, which was in the form of a copy of a letter to Eric Daniels detailing the Reading fraud.
  18. Our letter, which gave explicit detail of fraud and corruption in a then bailed out bank, was ignored.
  19. In 2010 we attempted again to give information to UKFI.
  20. Again it was impossible to make direct contact and we were told (politely) by their PR company, it is because “UKFI do not have time to deal with the general public.”
  21. We are not surprised they have little time for the public as the senior executives of UKFI appear to feature very heavily in any number of bank hospitality situations. We use one of many links as an example: http://www.ukfi.co.uk/images/dynamicImages/Hospitality%20table%20April%2010-%20Mar%2011.pdf
  22. We understand ‘hospitality’ is now accepted as entirely normal in business. However, the millions of people who were severely affected by the events at RBS, HBOS and its parent Lloyds Banking Group, may quite rightly consider the remit of UKFI is to dine well – courtesy of the banking industry – while ensuring they have little or no contact with the shareholders they represent.
  23. We eventually wrote to Sir David Cooksey and Robin Budenberg copying them in on a letter to Sir Win Bischoff. We made the point a Parliamentary Authority Member had advised us to do this.
  24. The reply we got from a UKFI representative informed us: ”We would direct you to note our Framework document which governs the relationship between UKFI and HM Treasury as sole shareholder of investee companies. This document clearly sets out the requirement of the independence of the Boards of the banks; in particular, that UKFI ‘will manage the investments on a commercial basis and will not intervene in day to day management decisions of the investee companies’… UKFI operates as an active and engaged shareholder. We have no regulatory powers, and no power to demand any information from the banks which would not be usually be provided in discharging our duties…As you may have read in our Annual report and accounts, our remit is to manage the investments to create and protect value for the taxpayer and to devise and execute a strategy for the disposing of investments……
  25. UKFI, as part of their remit to protect value for the tax payer, did not feel a massive fraud in a bank the public bailed out, was of any interest to the organisation working on behalf of the public.
  26. Similarly, the BBA told us in 2009 that, if what we were saying was true, it was very worrying but they could do nothing about it.
  27. The FSA, when we first contacted them in 2007, would not give us anything other than a generic e-mail address to send sensitive and personal information of many of the victims of HBOS Reading – which, understandably, we would not and could not do.
  28. The FSA did not get involved in any investigation regarding HBOS until April 2009 and just before the Debate in Westminster on the Reading
  29. We have spoken to many people in the banking profession since we started investigating HBOS Reading and many of them have confirmed to us they work under a regime of fear where missing targets would severely affect the bonus structure which, many of the public do not realise, goes right through the banking system and is not limited to senior executives and traders.
  30. For example and notwithstanding the Reading fraud, HBOS informed us in 2004 they were sending an accountant to review our figures. They did not inform us this would cost us over £1000 for a one hour visit. Neither did they advise us before deducting this amount from our account.
  31. Another example is how the banks’ lawyers charged us £3000 for a standard debenture document while our own lawyers charged £270.
  32. In the case of the Reading victims, all of whom were/are Company directors, the losses to their businesses and to themselves, far exceeds £150,000.
  33. In our case, corporate governance has allowed an internal fraud to progress to a major police operation and FSA investigation because no one at Board level would deal with the matter appropriately, in either HBOS or LBG.. Or so it would seem given the repeated denials for 5 years that anything was wrong.
  34. We have pointed out to the various Boards under various stewardships (Andy Hornby, Eric Daniels, Antonio Horta-Osorio) and on various occasions, the potential damage to the reputation of the Bank because of the scandalous proportions of the HBOS Reading fraud, should have been curtailed and minimised by proper adherence to the Law and sensible damage limitation.
  35. We have no doubt the Bank executives considered it impossible we, as customers, would ever have progressed the investigation of the fraud this far. But that is no excuse for their lack of corporate governance which: a) allowed such a huge fraud to be perpetrated against the Banks’ clients and its shareholders in the first instance and; b) exposed an extreme lack of corporate governance which would put the good name of the Bank at risk and further penalise the victims of an internal bank fraud, by attempting to cover it up rather than exercise proper management, governance and damage limitation.
  36. We advise the Commission, a former HBOS Executive has confirmed to Paul Moore that, in the over £1 billion Reading fraud, only a minority of the Board were “in the know” in 2007 while the others were told HBOS Reading was a minimal problem concerning amounts up to £49M and it had been dealt with.
  37. Clearly this was a case of executive and non executive directors being kept “in the dark” as to the true events concerning the Bank’s risks. Again we would suggest non executives, because of their other commitments, are unlikely to seriously challenge reports from executive directors or committees.
  38. It would be wrong for us to go into any great detail of how we feel the internal audits and controls at HBOS between 2002 and 2007 were a total misrepresentation of the true facts, as we would go into territory that could be harmful to Operation Hornet. However, there is absolutely no doubt that, overall, HBOS and particularly Bank of Scotland had, by 2004/5, become the ‘basket case’ of banking. This is not a term we invented but a term we have heard used by many people in the banking sector.
  39. It could (reasonably) be said we are not the biggest fans of the FSA. However, we can only conclude that, in the case of HBOS, the information given to the FSA with regard to internal audit and control between 2002 and 2007, was, in many instances, a work of fiction – the Arrow Reports.
  40. This was clearly evidenced in 2010 when the FSA sent the TSC a document detailing their version of events originating at Reading and based on a ‘control issue’ reported to the FSA in ‘early 2007’. It was fortunate the TSC copied the ‘brief’ to us so we were able to amend the document with the true facts.
  41. On a specific note and given it does not fall within the remit of Operation Hornet, we would draw to the Commission’s attention the false account HBOS set up in the name of our Company, Zenith Cafe Ltd., to pay the Bank’s legal expenses relating to HBOS Reading. These fees were nothing to do with Zenith.
  42. The account was opened in March 2008 and we were not aware of it until we started to receive interest statements from January 2010 and letters advising a ‘£30 Excess Overdraft fee’ had been added and would we bring the account into line with its facility. In June 2011 and after two requests from the Company’s Accountant, we received all the historical statements which itemised debits and the interest and charges applied. We believe they were sent by a whistleblower and the Bank have since confirmed we were not supposed to have sight of this documentation.
  43. The bank have said this is an ‘internal account’ to keep track of the costs relating to Reading and they never intended to ask us, as Directors, for the money back. We already had letters asking for the money.
  44. Additional to the £372,000 for debits made from the account, predominantly for fees to Denton Wilde Sapte (now SR Denton), the Bank have added approximately £250,000 in penalty fees and interest thus eliminating the possibility this was an internal ‘managers obligation account.’
  45. The account clearly shows a £372,000 debt of the bank as also being a £600,000 debt of our company, so a credit of the Bank. Clearly it is false accounting which we have reported to the FSA and the police.
  46. The FSA, after one year of investigation, say they have not got to the bottom of the matter. We bring it to the Commission’s attention because we do not consider it is at all likely this account is in isolation.
  47. As external whistleblowers, we would warn anyone pondering this route to consider carefully what they are doing before they start. In 2007 when we first uncovered the Reading fraud, we believed it would be quickly remedied for the victims by reporting the matter to the Board of the Bank. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
  48. As noted in para. 13 above, we have, since 2007, contacted every agency and authority possible alerting them first to the fraud and secondly, to the untenable consequences for the victims.
  49. Five years on, the situation remains the same for the victims. The Bank remains in denial despite a two year criminal investigation; we have undergone 22 eviction hearings in 3 years in an attempt by the Bank to silence us and which the Bank paid its additional legal costs via a false account in the name of our company (the actual legal costs were added to our mortgage) and; we continue to live like paupers.
  50. Finally on this aspect, we have personally seen some extraordinary fantasy accounting and conclusions from the Big 4 auditors in the HBOS Reading scenario, including serious breaches of accountancy standards and breaches of the Law. We are not at liberty to evidence these breaches to the Commission at the present time but we certainly will be able to when Operation Hornet is concluded.
  51. In June 2011 we prepared a dossier establishing a ‘time line’ of the conduct of the FSA in relation to the HBOS Reading fraud. This document was copied to the Treasury Select Committee and we would be happy to submit the same to the Commission, if requested. It is a detailed example of the conduct of the FSA in relation to established criminal activity in a bank. Over a year later, nothing has changed for the victims of HBOS Reading and the FSA has taken no enforcement action against the individuals at any level and who enabled the Reading fraud to happen.
  52. At all costs banks will not admit any fault or accept any responsibility even where the evidence clearly promotes a different approach. We cannot calculate how much money HBOS and subsequently LBG have spent defending their position regarding HBOS Reading but almost certainly, the end tariff will cost much more than it would have cost had the Bank dealt appropriately with the matter back in 2007.
  53. We use this question to highlight all we have said in our document and, in order to give the Commission perhaps the most blatant example of just how low professional standards have gone in banking, we use the Farepak debacle as an example.
  54. Our interest in this case dates back some time as the HBOS employees tasked with the Farepak problem, are the same team charged with dealing with the SMEs whose accounts were held at Reading and whose businesses had Quayside Corporate Services imposed upon them.
  55. We have read some of the transcripts of the Farepak trial (May to June 2012). The case against the Directors of EHR was brought by the Secretary of State. It claimed those directors were responsible for 133,000 people on low incomes unwarrantedly losing money they had saved for Christmas vouchers.
  56. What the case actually exposed was how the HBOS team used ‘hard nose tactics’ to block any solution the Directors of EHR proposed in their attempts to save the depositor money and keep Farepak trading.
  57. We don’t intend to go into great detail and we do not believe the Farepak injustice is a closed book.
  58. EHR requested additional funding of £5M in April 2006 to trade the company out of a problem caused by the demise of its main voucher supplier. In its attempts to source this shortfall, which the Bank would not facilitate, EHR was made to spend well over a million in fees to accountancy firms.
  59. HBOS, who refused to ring fence any of the savers’ money already deposited, received a further, circa £18M between April and October 2006 from the Farepak savers. This cashflow was used by the Bank to reduce EHR’s borrowings and allowed the business to carry on trading.
  60. The EHR Directors pursued at least 7 different avenues to secure the funding during this period, none of which were acceptable to the Bank and the Company was put into a pre-pack administration at the beginning of October 2006 causing the savers to lose all their money.
  61. As a PR exercise, HBOS initially put £2M into the ‘Unfairpak’ campaign and more recently they have added an additional £8M. We believe the winding up of the Business will finally cost circa £9M.
  62. Therefore a total of at least £10M has been paid in fees by a business that was looking for £5M additional funding; the whole exercise has cost HBOS itself £10M plus a serious loss of reputation; 133,000 people lost a net total of approximately £25M of the £37M they thought they had saved to ensure their families had a good Christmas plus they suffered all the anxiety caused by this conduct.
  63. A team of 3 or 4 people under the ultimate leadership of Peter Cummings, who was CEO of Bank of Scotland in 2006, brought about this shameful situation. We would make the point; in the transcript, one of the 4 describes his job as being part of the ‘High Risk’ team in 2006.
  64. When we dealt with the same team of people in 2007, their title was ‘Impaired Assets – Structured.’ The difference between High Risk and Impaired Assets is very clear. High Risk may look at resolving a situation by the addition of extra funding. Impaired Assets has a remit which does not include the possibility of any additional funding whatsoever and almost always, unless the clients themselves have a financial resolution, has an insolvency outcome.
  65. The Bank’s position and conduct is laid out very clearly in the transcripts of the case, days 11, 12 and 13. We believe it begs a question of whether HBOS ever intended to find a solvent solution for Farepak or whether the team from HBOS was, in fact, the ‘Impaired Assets’ team who always intended to put Farepak in Administration and simply allowed the directors of EHR to go through the process of finding a resolution in order for the Bank to get in all the savers’ money?
  66. Having met this ‘team’ and having seen how the SMEs associated to HBOS Reading were dealt with by this team, we suggest there was never any intention of saving Farepak. And while we fully appreciate a bank has every right not to extend further credit to a customer (business or individual), we would point out to the Commission that, simultaneous to the Bank’s refusal to assist Farepak with further, minimal funding, it was ploughing tens of millions of pounds into a business with almost no turnover and which had been put under the control of the Bank via its consultants.
  67. In July this year we sent information to a representative of Unfairpak who attended a meeting with Dr. Vince Cable MP after the Farepak trial had concluded and which placed no blame on the Directors of EHR. Our purpose was to evidence the blatant ‘double standards’ the Bank was applying to businesses at the time of the Farepak demise. Following is an extract from our e-mail and the figures are factual:          “..The other thing we think you should know is that contemporaneously to EHR going into liquidation for the lack of £3M to £5M, BoS was ploughing millions of pounds into a company called Corporate Jet Services (CJS). Looking at their accounts and giving a rough calculation, we can see the Bank allowed CJS to increase its borrowings by £19.671 million between April and September 2006 and the turn over for the same period in the cash book was £497,770 of which just over £125,000 was a repayment of VAT from HMRC.
  68. The Bank would say of course, it is down to their discretion how much money they give companies. However, it should be noted the Bank owned all the shares in Corporate Jet Services and despite the tens of millions of pounds they put in to the Company, it went into Administrative Receivership on 26th September 2007 owing the Bank £113M, according to PwC’s Administrator’s Report. Post the appointment of PwC, the Bank allowed the Company to pay £26, 244,708.73 to one subsidiary which was then sold to the now ex directors of the company for £1.00; £2,407,314.31 to another subsidiary that was also sold to the ex Directors for £1.00 and also £333,912.40 to PwC, who had already received £160, 054.84 a month before the Company went down.
  69. In total, the Directors of the Company (one of whom is a main suspect in the Reading case) paid £7.00 and a promise to acquire all the assets of CJS leaving the Bank with a massive debt which, had they taken action in May 2007 when they first brought in PwC to produce a report on the viability of CJS, the amount would have been reduced by at least £6 million.
  70. Additionally, this company had a £800,000 agreed overdraft facility that should have been renewed on 27th November 2003 but wasn’t and by the end of April 2006 the Company had an unauthorised OD of £28.6M according to the accounts for the year ending 31st December 2004 filed at Companies House and which were signed off in June 2006.
  71. Some additional points to be noted from the above comparative scenario between CJS and Farepak. The person dealing with both situations for the Bank, was the same. The PwC person involved in both matters was also the same. The PwC person not only advised the Bank regarding the failed rescue packages in the Farepak debacle, he was also the Bank appointed Administrative Receiver of EHR.
  72. An editorial note concerning the above e-mail extract. It should be noted the sale of the CJS subsidiary Companies to the ex Officers of CJS for £7 and a promise, was completed immediately prior to the Company being placed in Administrative Receivership on 26th September 2007. The first payment stated above as being made by the Bank to one subsidiary Company for £26+M, was made on 27th September 2007 and the payment to a second and different subsidiary also sold on 26th September, was made on 9th October 2007. Both payments post date the appointment of PwC.
  73. We are now into our 9th year since we unwittingly became the victims of the HBOS Reading scandal. Even if we one day get to the end of it and receive the compensation we are undoubtedly due, no one can give us or our families back the 9 years we have lost.
  74. Similarly, no one can give back the Farepak victims’ Christmas of 2006. These are just two scandalous situations out of many caused by bad banking practice. The most worrying thing is – no one has done anything to curtail this sort of behaviour and it continues.
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“Ill Founded and Misconceived” versus 47 Years In jail. Updated #HBOS Reading

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I am adding this update to the blog I wrote last February and just after Lynden Scourfield and five others were sent to jail. That was over six months ago.

I was fairly optimistic throughout March and April that the Bank were going to do the right thing and swiftly even although I should have realised at our meeting with the Bank in March, the quest for justice and compensation from the Bank was going to be a long haul.  At that meeting the Bank’s representative expected us (Paul and I) to accept the statement “it is a fact that prior to the trial the Bank had no evidence of criminality.” He said this (and repeated it several times) to the people who have been sending evidence of criminality to the senior management of LBG and their lawyers since the merger with HBOS happened. So the statement was clearly a blatant example of “false truth” or whatever the latest fashionable definition is for “a lie” and it was never going to wash with us. You can’t rewrite history just the same as you can’t lie to yourself even if your bosses can insist you lie to others.

The latest hiccups include: the Bank are not (contrary to their reports to the media) prepared to pay the ‘reasonable’ costs for the victims lawyers/advisers unless they give the Bank chapter and verse on what they are doing for their clients. As if??? As if the advisers will tell the Bank the private and confidential details of the work they’re doing with the victims. Then, if the Bank’s faceless panel make an unacceptable offer of compensation and the victim has to litigate, the bank already have all their information supplied by the advisers. Do the Banks lawyers really think we are all that stupid? And of course the more obvious point – if the bank won’t pay the lawyers/advisers for the victims and the victims can’t pay them, the victims could end up with no legal advice vs the Banks magic circle lawyers.

Another hiccup: some victims who didn’t have dealings directly with Scourfield of Dobson but were in any event destroyed by their lieutenants,  acting on Scourfield /Dobson’s orders, have been told by the Bank they are not considered as victims. The criteria is you have to have dealt directly with Scourfield, Dobson or Quayside. But believe me, some of those working for Scourfield really enjoyed their jobs and were every bit as ruthless and criminal as he was – but they didn’t get arrested. Maybe they will one day but in the mean time I hope the Bank stop the absurd pretence that victims of Scourfield/Dobson teams did not suffer.

Some might say optimism is an ill advised trait in this day and age.  Nevertheless I still think Lloyds will ultimately do the right thing – the question is when? They didn’t meet their target of 30th June to compensate the victims and I wonder if we or the media should have asked Mr Horta Osorio whether he actually meant the deadline of 30th June was June 2017 or 2018? But they will have to do the right thing sooner or later because the alternative would cast serious doubt on whether the Bank’s Chairman and CEO are ‘fit and proper people’ to be running a Bank.

At the end of the day, the Bank’s lawyers can plot all they like to delay or decrease the compensation thus increasing their own remuneration. But the blame for prolonging the misery of people who have already suffered unnecessarily for so many years (it was unnecessary because both HBOS and LBG were fully aware of the criminality years ago) will not be laid at the door of the lawyers –  the blame will go to Lord Blackwell and Antonio Horta-Osorio.  I hope their lawyers are not trying to persuade them that won’t happen because that would be another false truth and potentially a very costly one.

24th July 2017

 

What a week!

As many people reading this will know, on Thursday 2nd February the Judge in the HBOS Reading trial sentenced the five delusional Defendants who pleaded not guilty and the one Defendant who did plead guilty, to a total of 47 years in jail. I was in Court for some of the proceedings and I know many people who couldn’t attend will want to know how it went.

Paul and I didn’t get to Court until about 11.45. Partly because we had the BBC at our house by 6.30am to do Breakfast TV, which was quite an odd experience because we generally get interviewed by people who know a lot about the HBOS Reading fraud. So I kind of felt we and Steff McGovern were talking about different stories and I hope we have a chance to go back and explain it to Steff in more detail so we’re on the same page!

By the time we got to Court it was packed. So packed all you could do was stand by the door at the back of the Court. A lot of press were there as well as a lot of the victims and they were doing the mitigation pleas when we arrived. I went in and listened for 20 minutes and then had to leave. I had to leave because one Defendant’s QC was talking about the hardship it would cause his Client’s family should he be incarcerated! Another pointed out his client was over 60 and in ill health!!!

I always think anger is a dish served silently and after reflection but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay silent or reflective in light of these comments. The families of scores of people including mine, have been devastated for years because of these people. Many of the victims have been serving a prison sentence for years and so have their children. We’ve had businesses trashed, no livelihood, no way forward because this has taken so long to reach a criminal conviction and we’ve been living on the breadline. On top of that our reputations, our credit ratings and our dignity has been smashed (yes Nigel, I pinched that from your excellent piece on BBC News at 10!).

Meanwhile, some of the people in the dock have been living like kings and indulging in every possible luxury (not always the luxuries that are to everyone’s taste) on the back of what they stole from SMEs. I say ‘some people’ because there were various degrees of ability or desire to indulge and these have been reflected in the Judge’s excellent summing up and sentencing.

On the subject of not being sent down because someone is 60 and in ill health – I am now 61, my husband is now 65 and we would consider our health to have been destroyed except for the fact other victims have fared far worse – at least five victims are dead!

I decided not to listen any more and I joined Paul in the corridor. I’ve done my best to keep Paul out of the Court room since September 2016. As many of the SME Alliance members will know, he has a photographic memory and I believe he would have been severely agitated to hear some of the evidence from both sides of the case.

We weren’t sure if the sentences would actually happen in the afternoon but fortunately they did. Again I could only squeeze into the back of the room because it was overcrowded. It was also incredibly hot and I began to wonder if people might start to feint from the heat and stuffiness – and the tension.

All through this trial it has been incredibly difficult to hear what is being said and Thursday last week was no different. People coughing, blowing their noses, turning pages of note pads (I was horribly guilty of that), people shuffling in their chairs and the Judge talking very quietly because of appalling acoustics – it’s been a nightmare. But everyone was doing their best to be quiet and hear what the Judge was saying. I don’t have to repeat what he said because it is documented, has been repeatedly reported on and is on the SME Alliance Public Interest page. But you had to be there or maybe you had to attend the entire trial, to get the impact of the Judge’s speech.

More than the sentences the Defendants’ got, I was grateful for that speech. He really got it – he really knew who these people were. The greedy ones, the stupid ones and the evil ones. Judge Beddoe knew exactly who was who in this trial and what their role was or what their importance was. This was so important. A Judge, any Judge, has to remain impartial throughout a trial and although all the way through the trial Judge Beddoe repeatedly picked up on things others in the Court missed, he was always impartial. But clearly he knew who he was dealing with and his speech before sentencing made that very clear. I and others have noted throughout the trial, Judge Beddoe is an exceptionally intelligent man and we were lucky he took this case. I am pretty sure he, like Paul, has a photographic memory – thank God.

Even in the middle of the chaos all around and with people cheering in the Court at the result, I genuinely felt for the first time that all the hard work Paul and I have put into this for 10 years, has been worth it. Not because these Defendants who, let’s face it, are either damaged, delusional or sad people, have been sent down for so long – in lots of ways I think losing their assets, their reputations and their livelihoods (like their victims) would have been almost as damaging as prison – but because I can now start to believe after all this time, perhaps our justice system can work.

I know all the victims of HBOS Reading will be grateful to the Judge, the Jury (they were brilliant), Brian O’Neil QC (Brilliant) with his team and Thames Valley Police (especially Mick Murphy) and, as you can imagine, it was a fairly emotional moment when the Judge read out 15 years for Mills, 11 years 3 months for Scourfield, 10 years for Bancroft, 4 years 6 months for Dobson and 3 years 6 months for Mrs Mills and Cartwright. I imagine it was even more emotional for them.

It would be wrong to focus on the downside after such a result but sadly there is one. We, the victims, won a battle last Thursday, definitely the biggest one we’ve fought so far – keeping that trial on track and getting the result (Paul and I have had to win 22 court battles over the last ten years to keep our house). But we haven’t won the war. HBOS have known about this fraud since 2006. Lloyds TSB have known about it since at least 2007 while Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) have known about it and certainly at a very high level, after the merger with HBOS in 2009. Peter Cummings, Andy Hornby, Lord Stevenson, Sir Victor Blank, Eric Daniels, Sir Win Bischoff and Antonio Horta Osorio. They have persecuted us and other victims for years in the knowledge every allegation we have made was correct. Why? How? How could this have happened? And even now when six people have been sent to jail for over 47 years, LBG are still putting out bland obfuscation as soundbites instead of doing the right thing. What will the latest Chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, Lord Blackwell, do now?

What will Andrew Bailey, the CEO of the FCA, do now?

HBOS could have resolved this years ago – so could LBG. It would have cost peanuts compared to what it will cost after the criminal trial. There must be a reason the Banks didn’t do the right thing? Is all this denial just hubris? Or is this because the management feel obliged to continue with their denials in order to stop an even bigger scandal coming out?

I’ve called this blog “Ill-founded and Misconceived” because that’s what the Deputy Chairman of Denton Wilde Sapte said about our irrefutable evidence back in 2008. He wrote this in a letter to us on behalf of the Board of HBOS and after HBOS had done various investigations establishing the facts as documented in the criminal proceedings. I think the ex Board members may well regret leaving the letter writing to Mr McAlpine.

One last thing – much as I think he was always fighting a losing battle and he lost, I was very impressed by Mills’ Barrister Kieran Vaughn QC. So that’s two names for the record – Brian O’Neill QC and Kieran Vaughn QC – just saying.

Justice delayed is justice denied #HBOS

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I wrote this blog on Tuesday 6th October 2015 but I didn’t post it because I didn’t want to tempt fate. Unfortunately fate is doing it’s own thing right now and my premonition was no more than logic. Dressed up in different clothes but all the same, on 9th October 2015 the HBOS Reading trials were put back to September 2016.

There is nothing in this blog that breaches sub judice. This isn’t about the merits of the case it is only about the conduct of the case and I make no mention of the content of the allegations. I would however point out that 9th October was a very very sad and even catastrophic day for a lot of people – but, as always, that seems fairly immaterial to the situation and, as far as I know, no one considered the victims when the case was moved.

Justice delayed is justice denied (written 6th October 2015).

Six years ago today Paul and I finished writing a report for the FSA on the subject of HBOS Reading. At that point we had already been investigating events originating at HBOS Reading (that’s the PC description) for over two years. Also at that time we were living on the bread line, our business had been trashed, HBOS/Lloyds had already tried to evict us about 17 times (22 times in total) and no one was really interested in our allegations of fraud.

In 2010 Thames Valley Police finally started an investigation and 12 people have been arrested. It took until January 2013 for anyone to be charged and the criminal trials were due to start in January 2015. But in October last year, the victims of HBOS Reading were suddenly told the trials had been delayed for a year. They are now due to start in January 2016 – or are they?

Call me a cynic but the articles in the press yesterday about the Chancellor, George Osborne’s intentions to off load £2BN worth of Lloyds shares with various discounts and incentive schemes thrown into the pot, rang some alarm bells. This bargain basement sale is due to have completed by Spring 2016 and I can’t help but wonder if a major criminal trial about events in Lloyds unruly pup HBOS is really going to persuade the public they want to get involved with Lloyds?

Of course Lloyds don’t need to rely on the antics at HBOS to tarnish their reputation. At SME Alliance we see examples of outrageous and potentially criminal bank conduct every day and while it would seem Lloyds can’t actually hold a candle to RBS, they don’t do so well in the popularity stakes. Lloyds have huge issues to address and plenty of group litigations to look forward to. Do they care? According to Rowan Bosworth-Davies, giving a powerful speech at an SME Alliance meeting yesterday, top bankers consider themselves to be a protected species. I have no doubt he’s right and that’s exactly what they believe.

However, what worries me more than the conduct of bankers is the conduct of politicians and the judiciary.

To be honest, if I was George Osborne I would be absolutely desperate to get rid of all and any shares in RBS or Lloyds – and he clearly is. Apparently RBS are now going to buy back their own shares to help the Government out: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/11900014/RBS-could-buy-back-its-own-shares-to-aid-Government-sell-off.html

Meanwhile Lloyds are now going to become the best thing since SID. Fine, and I really wouldn’t care (because I can see why George is doing it, although the ethics of letting RBS buy their own shares with the money they borrowed from the State, does seem something that would have Mr Micawber turning in his grave) except that, in the case of Lloyds, I have a horrible feeling that all those skeletons Mr Horta Osorio wanted dragged out of the cupboard when he took over as boss, are about to be put back in and even bricked up.

HBOS is a delicate subject in anyone’s book and I suspect the forthcoming book ‘Crash Bank Wallop’ by Paul Moore, the HBOS Whistleblower and a good friend, will be considered by some as being as delicate as the trigger on a hand grenade! There’s nothing the authorities can do about that and I dare say Mr Horta Osorio will react in a similar way to David Cameron when Lord Ashcroft’s book about him came out. In the name of dignity he will just try and ignore it. But it will rankle and it will beg the question “why the hell did Lloyds get involved with a basket case bank?”

Then there’s the HBOS report which apparently some MPs are getting a bit tetchy about. As I blogged the other day, we have been warned about the likely redactions. But in my opinion, redactions won’t be enough. I think it’s likely to be delayed again and, if not, the redactions and re-write’s to protect the great and the good (not Hornby, Cummings, Stevenson or Crosby – I don’t think they are a protected species any more) will mean the report has limited value. We may get something in October as we’ve been promised but I’m guessing the full report, when all the Maxwellisation and Re-Maxwellisation has been completed and enough lawyers have made sufficient money to sail off to the Cayman Islands in a beautiful pea green boat, will appear late Spring and after the Lloyds shares have been sold. And on whose orders?

A lot of people will be eager to read Paul’s book and the HBOS report (believe me, the book will be the better read). However, the victims of HBOS Reading are not waiting to read a book. Not even my book which is about HBOS Reading. We are waiting to get our lives back and we’ve waited a very long time. Given the trials are about events that happened between 2002 and 2007, some of us will have been waiting 14 years by the time the trials are over. And the idea (and it is only a suspicion) that the trials will be moved again to fit in with the Lloyds share sale or for any other reason, makes me feel physically sick. Not only because I am tired, I’ve had enough and I want out of the nightmare this has become – but because I am literally terrified at the idea politicians can manipulate the criminal justice system to suit their ends and those of the 1%!

Surprisingly I have a lot of friends who are lawyers, barristers, QCs and even the odd Judge. They are good people and I know many of them care passionately about justice. They are also common sense people and I know many of them have campaigned against the cut in legal aid and the rise in court costs for people who can ill afford to take on gigantic corporate organisations.

SME Alliance relies on the good advice we get from good people in the legal world – some of our members haven’t always had good advice but we are gradually getting together a very good team. When I explain to my friends how often the Reading trials have hit delays and for how long, they are shocked. I’m not sure our new friend Rowan Bosworth-Davies will be shocked if, for what ever reason the HBOS Reading trials are moved to late Spring. I don’t think my good friend Brian Basham will be shocked nor will Paul Moore be shocked.

I won’t be shocked but I will be devastated. If it happens and I genuinely pray we won’t have another delay, it will cause untold pain, misery and unhappiness for a group of people who are already at the end of their wits. And personally, whatever reason is given for another delay, I will find it hard not to think it is to accommodate George Osborne’s sale of the Lloyds shares. And, were that to be the case (although of course that would never be the reason given) that would be a bad day for democracy and for truth and justice because, whatever politicians do and what ever power they have, they should never have the power to interfere with justice.

 

 

 

Dear Sirs, this is hardly flattering. Please redact. #HBOS

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IMG_3454I’m confused – for years now the FSA followed by the FCA have been looking into the conduct of HBOS. Whether or not he is considered good guy or bad guy, I know Hector Sants (who admittedly took some persuading) was eventually keen to get to the bottom of what had been going on in HBOS and he wasn’t in the mood for ‘cover up’ when he released the BoS Censure Report in March 2012. Not long after that he mysteriously went from being the golden boy tipped to take a top job at the Bank of England, to relative anonymity. Since then nothing has been heard about the Section 168 Report commenced in June 2010 specifically into HBOS Reading (probably because of the ever pending criminal trials due to start in January 2016) and the overall report into HBOS and its top management has been continually delayed.

Articles in the press yesterday seem to confirm that report will be out next month (October 2015). However, even now, after the endless delays and God knows how much spent in legal fees by the Bank (I imagine Lloyds has picked up the bill for Stevenson, Hornby, Cummings and Crosby – if he’s actually included) and the regulator, we have now been warned to expect redactions.

How does that work? The regulator does an in depth investigation into the catastrophic demise of HBOS and the people who were running the Bank don’t like the conclusions the FCA have reached – so they are able to have certain parts redacted. I’m not saying the report found anything criminal (although in my personal view I fail to see how it couldn’t have found some very shady conduct) but even in a civil court, could someone ask a Judge to redact the bits of evidence they don’t like? Imagine, “your honour, I don’t think the evidence before you puts me in a favourable light so I’d like that bit crossed out.” I would love to have any current photo taken of me photo shopped so I look thirty years younger but the truth is, I’m not. These possible redactions are similarly trying to change history – and it can’t be done. Neither should anyone countenance attempts to do so.

I have been told (repeatedly) that the FCA has quite extraordinary powers, should it care to use them. I know the powers of the FSA were split between the FCA and the PRA but all the same, how can top bankers or their legal teams, oblige the regulator to redact the findings of its own report? It makes no sense. Neither does the sharp ‘Harp’ exit of Mr Wheatley make sense. I find the whole thing very concerning. Rumour (or the media) has it, Mr Wheatley was too ‘consumer friendly’ and this did not fit in with Mr Osborne’s plans to make sure the City Of London retains pride of place in the financial world. Which is a bit odd because lately, even the BBC has been portraying the Square Mile as something akin to the Guild of Thieves from the Disk World.

Therefore, what worries me is this: if Mr Wheatley had to go because he wasn’t banker friendly enough, how can we expect Mr Osborne to allow a full, frank portrayal of what went on at HBOS?

Although various MPs and, I think, the TSC have demanded to see any redacted passages, how can other people, who have first hand experience of what was going on at HBOS, ever challenge what they will never see? I do know what some of the information and evidence the PRA received to contribute to this report was, as I sent some, as did Paul Moore. We didn’t send it randomly in the hope someone would read it, we were in direct contact with the PRA and the Bank of England via the Governor and we know they all received and read our evidence. Consequently we have our own views on what the FCA Report should include. It’s not a pretty picture and I have often wondered how the bankers concerned would refute this evidence? Well obviously, if the contentious or nasty bits of the report are redacted, they won’t have to!

Redaction has been a big issue with SME Alliance recently. Members sending Direct Access Requests (DSAR) to get their information from their own central files in banks (mostly RBS) have received such varied replies, we’ve asked both RBS and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) to clarify exactly what members should expect to get. The answers so far have been as clear as mud but it is pretty clear no one should be getting entire pages redacted. Neither should anyone be getting information that has been manipulated or tampered with (that’s another story coming soon). We are struggling to get to the bottom of Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 and a definitive interpretation. But I’m not sure Section 7 of the DPA was ever intended as a barrier to regulators publishing reports on banks or bankers! Neither was Maxwellisation and the remarkable Re-Maxwellisation meant to be used as a means of delay or ‘cover up.’ These are clearly new techniques invented by the very clever (and well paid) lawyers of La La Land – but that doesn’t mean we or the regulators should blithely accept them.

My other concern is that while this report may actually be more candid than others before it (I’m remembering the 1 page press release fiasco from Lord Turner about RBS http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmtreasy/640/640.pdf ), it will be written in such a way as to minimise any potential legal actions against Lloyds Banking Group who merged with HBOS. Contagion is a huge issue for the banks and I’m sure the emphasis of this report will be on “this is what HBOS did but Lloyds were totally unaware of any of this.” Which begs the question (again) – why would Lloyds go ahead with such a critical merger without knowing chapter and verse of what they were getting involved with? Money laundering rules being what they are these days (or profess to be), banks need so much information to open an account, I’m waiting for “what colour knickers are you wearing” to be added to the list of KYC questions. So it is inconceivable Lloyds had inadequate detail about their new partner. And, in my opinion, Lloyds didn’t just merge with HBOS, they’ve done a pretty good job at morphing into the same sort of unethical and unattractive organisation.

Last thing – I know many victims of HBOS have waited years now for some sort of closure. The criminal trials regarding HBOS Reading have taken years to happen (if they ever do) and the various reports on HBOS have been endlessly delayed and now (probably) redacted. While I don’t suppose the ex management of HBOS have been quite as cavalier about the FCA report as they were about running the bank, I very much doubt if any of them have suffered anything like the hardship the banks’ victims have. Some of us have had our businesses ruined and our lives on hold for many years. Not to mention the many people who lost their savings and their retirement plans via the disastrous way HBOS was run. So I really hope, regardless of the HMT’s desire to hang on to its golden goose (that many of us feel is actually a dead duck), that when the HBOS Report does finally come out, it is as honest as harsh and as damning as it should be. Hector left us with the BoS Censure Report – before Mr Wheatley left, let’s hope he finished the job and, for once, let the blame fall where it’s due.

Christmas 2014 round up of financial crimes with no one going to jail.

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My husband made a very valid point a few days ago and I have been thinking about it every day since. He pointed out that when we (Paul and I) started looking at misconduct in the financial industry and specifically HBOS, we couldn’t get anyone to take our allegations seriously because no one believed us. That was in 2007 and it took until late 2009 to actually get the FSA involved and 2010 before the police got involved – even although we made allegations to the police in November 2007. We’re not a lot further forward now in December 2014 because the criminal trials for that alleged crime won’t start until September 2015 – and even then, I’m not holding my breath.

It was disappointing no one believed us in 2007 but not surprising because the idea banks, or rather bankers, might be crooks, was out of the question back then. Bankers were seen as respectable professionals and your bank manager was so trustworthy, he or she could even sign your passport. The same doesn’t apply now and no one bats an eyelid at the concept of crooked bankers – in fact bad conduct is what we expect from them, to the point even the good guys (yes I do acknowledge there are still many good bankers our there) are tarred with the same brush.

Paul’s point was simple: It was tough back in 2007 because no one believed us, so nothing was done. Now, everyone knows the financial sector is rife with fraud and corruption and still nothing has been done! Not just in the case we reported – right across the board and in thousands of cases. Even more alarming is the fact that, in many instances I know of, where people have tried to report financial crime, the police will not investigate it! In all probability this is because they don’t have the budgets to investigate such a glut of criminality in austerity Britain – but that is of no help to the victims who are frequently told – “it’s a civil matter.” No it’s not – crime is never a ‘civil matter’ and even victims of PPI have a right to report it as a crime, get a crime number and, if applicable, also have it investigated. Of course that might damage crime statistics.

But no. Most financial crime is just swept under the carpet as “mis-selling” or “restructuring” and resolved by bank shareholders’ paying huge fines to the FCA. Think about that for a moment – we all believe bankers have committed criminal acts but nothing has happened. It just beggars belief and is really as scary as hell because, what it actually means is, we can no longer rely on the Law and really do have a two tier criminal justice system. There isn’t another, plausible explanation.

This terrifying thought was brought home again when I read the latest excellent Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone magazine: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-police-in-america-are-becoming-illegitimate-20141205 where he is talking about the disparities in the US legal system and it reminded me that I still haven’t had a reply to my letter to Mr Cameron of December 2012 when I asked for some clarification about the apparent immunity bankers have from prosecution. In that letter, which I wrote after reading some worrying comments from Andrew Bailey (now head of the PRA), I said:

“Mr Cameron, unless I am completely mistaken, Mr Bailey seems to be telling us that banks, and therefore bankers, are now officially considered to be above the law in this country and that, in the interests of confidence in the banking industry (which is already at rock bottom among the British public, and therefore can hardly sink any lower), they cannot be prosecuted.

I am writing to ask you, as Prime Minister, for some clarification.

Does your government endorse the notion that banks and bankers should be given a licence to commit criminal acts without any fear of prosecution? Is this now official government policy? Are the British public now being asked to accept that, despite incontrovertible evidence of multiple criminal acts by banks, including money-laundering, drug-money-laundering, Libor rigging, multiple frauds and assorted Ponzi schemes, bankers are considered to be immune from prosecution? And if so, can I ask on what grounds your government, or indeed the government of any democratic country, can justify such a policy?” Full letter here: http://www.ianfraser.org/dear-mr-cameron-if-bankers-are-above-the-law-we-need-an-urgent-explanation/

I didn’t write the letter to be confrontational – although I must admit I am incredibly disappointed the PM’s strong words in the run up to the last election about what should happen to criminal bankers, turned out to be hot air and no more. This is what he said to Jeff Randall in January 2009:

“I think that we need to look at the behaviour of banks and bankers and, where people have behaved inappropriately, that needs to be identified and if anyone has behaved criminally, in my view, there is a role for the criminal law and I don’t understand why is this country the regulatory authorities seem to be doing so little to investigate it, whereas in America they’re doing quite a lot.”

I wrote the letter because I genuinely wanted some reassurance from the Prime Minister that bankers are not above the law; we don’t have a two tier legal system and; something would be done to redress this inequitable situation.

So what has happened to clarify or allay my concerns since December 2012? Well a few things have happened but not what I was expecting. For example:

  1. I’ve never had a reply.

  2. Several banks have been found guilty of money laundering and even money laundering for drug cartels. And the only penalty has been a huge tax on the bank’s shareholders who have paid massive fines for the conduct of bankers. But no one has gone to jail.

*given that banks (buildings or legal entities) don’t have any physical ability to pick up the phone and negotiate with drug cartels – such deals had to be done by bankers. So why have no bankers been held responsible?

  1. Many banks have been found guilty of making billions of pounds with the PPI scam. They’ve had to pay the money back in many cases but, I assure you, not all cases. So again, the shareholders have lost a fortune. But no one has gone to jail.

* I often wonder who invented PPI? Did senior bankers sit down and plan how best to get thousands of their customers to take out insurance policies which cost them a fortune but could never be used? Or did someone in a bank find a recipe for creating and implementing PPI in a fortune cookie?

  1. As a founder member of SME Alliance, I talk every day to people whose businesses have been totally destroyed with various, ridiculously (and I would suggest deliberately) complicated financial products under the collective name of swaps. I’m not a victim of a swap and I know little about them (I’m learning fast) but even their titles smack of more contempt for businesses e.g. vanilla swaps. Can you have chocolate or strawberry? Probably. The FCA have said many of these products should never have been sold to ‘unsophisticated’ clients and in some cases banks have had to give the money back. However, the years it has taken for this to happen and the devastation these products have caused, apparently do not necessitate banks having to pay out billions in compensation. The redress scheme the FCA has come up with has conveniently been limited to peanuts – and no one has gone to jail.

* A journalist was telling me the other day of a case where someone challenged the FCA decision multiple times and was eventually awarded £500k – but of course the bank interest and charges on his account over the time it took to challenge the bank’s conduct meant the victim got nothing and the bank paid themselves £500k. You couldn’t make it up.

  1. The now infamous business recovery units like RBS/GRG have been merrily acquiring, appropriating, stealing their clients’ assets left right and centre and sadly RBS have not been working in isolation. It has caused outrage – it’s been all over the news, MPs have held debates on the subject, Committees have interviewed senior bankers and regulators and even the ever cautious BBC have suggested some bankers are crooks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04t6jy1 But no one has gone to jail.

* As a victim of HBOS Reading (similar model) I have so much to say on this – but am having to keep quiet for now but not forever.

  1. And while the likes of GRG and HBOS Reading have caused many businesses to fail, a separate scandal has specifically targeted farms across the Country for over 20 years. Repeated allegations have been made against a man called Des Phillips and various of the 59 companies he has been or is a director of including UK Farm Finance, UKCC and UK Acorn Finance. And some of our major banks have been heavily implicated in these allegations as have other ‘professionals’. It’s a sickening story which has resulted in many family farms being repossessed and, sadly, farmers committing suicide. You can hear about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hzz5 or read about here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm141111/halltext/141111h0001.htm No one has been prosecuted so no one has gone to jail.

  2. Bankers or traders have been found guilty of rigging LIBOR. Again, massive fines have been levied – another penalty on shareholders. However, in this instance it looks possible some bankers will go to jail and one banker has even pleaded guilty. But let’s not get too excited that justice might be done. Read this: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/07/banker-pleads-guilty-libor-rigging-rate-fixing

As you can see the banker concerned could get up to 10 years in jail but we don’t know who he is or what bank he worked for and reporting on this case is heavily restricted. Presumably, after the other three people charged have had their trials, we might know more. But I wouldn’t bet money on it – especially if the banker in question worked for one of the State subsidised banks. But it’s a start.

I could make the list much longer but, to date and looking at the 6 instances above, money laundering, PPI, Swaps, asset theft including farms and LIBOR rigging, it’s certain 1 person in the UK will go to jail and 4 people might. And when you look at the trail of poverty, misery, desperation and devastation these crimes have caused, it is unbelievably disappointing – not to mention scandalous, that our regulators, justice system and worse still, our Government, have let this happen. In fact it is morally and ethically reprehensible.

Of course individual bankers do go to jail quite regularly – they’re usually quite low down in the pecking order and their offences (with a few noticeable exceptions) just about make it into their local newspapers. But the top dogs – the ones who make policy – the ones who instigate and oversee the kind of conduct which allowed all of the above to happen, seem to remain above the law. Which begs the question – why do we have laws?

Meanwhile, the Government have issued the following figures regarding crimes to businesses:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284818/crime-against-businesses-headlines-2013-pdf.pdf

I haven’t read it in any great detail but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mention the wholesale destruction of SMEs by banks. I sometimes think we should move the Houses of Parliament to Canary Wharf and have done with it before La La Land spreads across the whole of London.

Here in the real world we are in the run up to what will be another very austere festive season for many people in Britain – and I’m not just talking about people or SMEs who have been defrauded by banks. I’m talking about those families who’ve lost jobs and/or benefits and most of all, those people relying on food banks or who have lost their homes and now live on the street. A lot of people would say – me included – our major banks and therefore our most senior bankers, were very instrumental in causing our national austerity. And, post the so called Credit Crunch, those same banks (especially the part State owned ones) have done little to help the economy and much to damage it further. Unbelievably, the people at the top of those banks continue to be heavily rewarded.

For example, yesterday (13th December) I was reading an article about the top paid European Bank CEO’s. http://www.cityam.com/1415705309/which-ceos-european-bank-have-biggest-pay-checks-two-uk-banks-take-second-and-third-place

Hmmm – £7.4M. Even when you deduct 50% tax, that still leaves approximately £71k a week. I think you could have one hell of a Christmas with that remuneration package!

Mind you, every silver lining has its own cloud and I suddenly thought – I bet it’s really tough finding the perfect Christmas gift for these top bankers because, what do you buy for the man or woman who has everything? So maybe La La Land has its own problems at Christmas.

Shame you can’t gift wrap integrity – if we could give some of them that, the whole Country might feel more festive. Still, there’s always the good old standby gift – Monopoly. After all, banks have bought, sold, packaged and mortgaged every property on the board many, many times over – but, to date, they have been very adept at steering clear of the “Go to Jail” square. But then I’m guessing Al Capone thought he would never lose ‘games’ either.

Following on from yesterday’s Indy article about the HBOS Rights Issue, can we at least stop subsidising fraudulent conduct in banks?

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Tom Harper’s excellent article questioning whether or not investors were given key financial facts regarding the HBOS Rights Issue in 2008, provoked some serious outrage on the ‘Twittersphere’ yesterday – and quite rightly so. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/hbos-accused-of-misleading-the-public-over-4bn-rescue-9701791.html

I don’t suppose the Government, Lloyds, the Regulator or the BoE will be happy with that line of investigation. Not least because it opens the door to a whole torrent of questions about how many other transactions, involving state subsidised banks, have been less than transparent?

And perhaps the biggest question will be – was the information in the Lloyds/HBOS Merger proposal, as accurate and transparent as it should have been?

I am sure Lloyds bank will say the HBOS Rights Issue was nothing to do with them as it pre-dated the merger. But in order for the Merger Proposal to be correct, it should have contained watertight data about the financial state of HBOS – which, reading Tom’s article, I’m not sure it could have? I’ve looked at the Proposal and it relies on financial accounts for HBOS and Lloyds TSB dating back to 2005 – although conveniently, it only relies on unaudited accounts for HBOS in 2008. Not that it makes much difference because, sadly and to add weight to yesterdays article, the Big 4 auditors appear to have been equally confused as to the solvency of the banks despite the audited accounts, as shown in another excellent article by Ian Fraser, November 2010: http://www.ianfraser.org/connolly-i-do-believe-that-auditors-performed-well/

What I find really upsetting about all this was brought home this morning by an article from the Positive Money site (following up on an article by Jill Treanor in the Guardian). The article dates back to December 2013 and explains, in very clear and simple terms, how banks continue to be subsidised and why. https://www.positivemoney.org/2013/12/uk-banks-benefited-38bn-big-fail-state-subsidy/ And of course, if we are still subsidising the part state owned banks – we are also subsidising bankers’ bonuses – which, considering neither Lloyds nor HBOS have managed to comply with the terms and conditions of the 2008 bailouts, seems entirely unjust not to mention bonkers. In a letter I received from the Treasury dated 15/05/09, Lloyds and HBOS agreed to meet the following terms:

A range of conditions are attached to the recapitalisation package. Lloyds TSB and HBOS have agreed that over the next three years they will maintain the availability and active marketing of competitively priced lending to homeowners and to small businesses at 2007 levels. They will also provide support for schemes to help people struggling with mortgage payments to stay in their homes and the expansion of financial capability initiatives. The remuneration of senior executives will follow strict guidelines – both for 2008 (when the Government expects no cash bonuses to be paid to board members) and for remuneration policy going forward (where incentives schemes will be reviewed and linked to long-term value creation, taking account of risk, and restricting the potential for “rewards for failure”). The Government will also be consulted on the appointment of new independent non-executive directors…”

Joining up all the dots, I begin to get a very clear picture of La La Land and it’s not pretty. As I am definitely a layman in these matters (albeit a fairly well informed one), I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my view of what’s happened over the last few years.

Round up of events in La La Land.

In 2008 and after exceptional spending sprees by both the banks and the public, the proverbial finally hit the fan and many banks ran out of money. The Government, terrified they’d have a repeat of the Northern Rock débâcle, gave the banks billions from the taxpayers’ coffers. As this resulted in mass austerity, the Government were loath to let anyone know exactly how bad a shape some of the banks were in (some were insolvent) and they certainly didn’t want the public to know the exact details of the billions being handed over, so they did their best to keep it all quiet. They (and the banks) even kept it quiet from the people being asked to invest in the banks via rights issues and/or sanction the HBOS-Lloyds merger, although they didn’t have to keep it quiet from institutional investors, because they were ‘in the know’ and had no intention of investing in insolvent banks.

The banks took the money but totally ignored the social responsibility that went with it (terms and conditions) in the same way they ignore little things like money laundering laws or Principle 1 of the FSA Principles of Business: A Firm must conduct its business with integrity. Actually I struggle to see how most banks comply with any of the FCA Principles: http://www.fca.org.uk/static/documents/handbook-releases/high-level-standards136.pdf Section 2.1

However, after the credit crunch the banks could no longer be seen to lend with reckless abandon (which was a bit annoying, as they rather liked basing bonuses on inflated loan books), so they invented other reckless and ingenious ways of making money – e.g crippling the SME sector and stealing assets. Best of all, having totally screwed up and taken everyone’s money, they came up with their most ingenious plan to date – they sold us all the simple concept that – if we didn’t allow bankers to keep taking bonuses, they’d walk away – and then we’d all be screwed. To make sure that dreadful day never comes, we continue to subsidise banks so they all live happily ever after.

That sounds like a pretty dark fairy story and the darkest bit is – it’s not a fairy story. So I hope somewhere, someone in authority (not mentioning any names Mr Tyrie) will have read Tom Harper’s articles, Ian Fraser’s articles and I’m hoping Max Keiser will invite Paul Moore back on the Keiser show to talk about the appalling behaviour of HBOS, Lloyds and other banks. Because, crazy as is it and despite all the rules, laws and regulators we have, I think our best chance of getting banking reform is to report bank misconduct to the media and then spread the word via Twitter? Of course, that could ultimately do enormous damage to some banks but I can see little alternative to this course of action. It’s a huge problem that while we definitely do have regulators, it seems La La land is out of their jurisdiction – which is the obvious reason they cannot do anything to penalise errant bankers.

*Here’s a thought – if we’re going to rely on journalists to clean up the banking world – maybe we should be paying our financial journalists (and their research teams) more and getting rid of regulators? We’d save a fortune and get some results.

Anyway, what upsets me most about all this is how we continue to let ourselves be mugged and my point is: If banks are intent on continuing to cheat their customers, destroy SMEs and refusing to compensate the people they defraud while insisting they still get huge bonuses – fine. It seems there’s little we can do about it. But can we please, please stop subsidising this conduct?

Bank reform or tokenism? Rule No 1. “Don’t ever side with anybody against the family”.

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I don’t particularly like August. It doesn’t mean holiday time for my family – it just means a month when Paul and I can make little progress towards ever having a holiday because everyone to do with the HBOS scam we’re determined to see exposed, is on holiday. Still, this year August has at least given me some quiet time to continue with my book, which is going well. I can even say I’m enjoying writing it now even although it is taking me back over some very dark times including 22 eviction hearings because, for HBOS/LBG, screwing my business wasn’t enough and they wanted my home as well.

I’ve put as much humour as possible into the book because, as in the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ story, I can see that what people really enjoy knowing about, is the excesses and madness of the banking world. They want to be entertained and disgusted at the same time – which is maybe why the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ is a rather one sided story or ‘romp’ that focused entirely on events in ‘La La Land’ but totally ignored the effects banking or bankers have had on the rest of the world. All the same, the film was entertaining and, let’s face it, some of us might give bankers a bit more latitude if they looked like Leonardo de Caprio. But it also made me worry and contrary to what I have previously considered possible, I’m beginning to think maybe bankers are indeed starting to achieve Mafia status? We can’t control what they do but we can make great films about them. Well, if that’s the way we’re going, let’s do it – I have just the script. Although casting could be a bit of an issue with our Britbank villains.

However, there is one overwhelmingly depressing thing that really pains me while I’m writing the book about my own experience with banks and bankers – over the last 7 years and despite bucket loads of rhetoric from Governments, regulators and the endless committees who have, apparently, investigated the causes of the ‘credit crunch’, nothing has changed. Nothing at all. And that’s bad.

I have this horrible gut feeling that, while everyone, including bankers, insist that what we all want is a better banking system devoid of excessive risk, dodgy derivatives and dubious standards, actually, what the banking world really want is to carry on with “business as usual.” In reality, what’s happening now is an even bigger whitewash than all those we’ve already had. While the headlines insist bankers are about to get their comeuppance and even the SFO are threatening to investigate bank malpractice, behind the scenes and very casually, the right people are being put into the right places to make sure the cracks in the walls get a new round of sticky plaster. The ‘revolving door’ is quietly turning again. But moving the chairs around on the Titanic, didn’t do any good after the last credit crunch and moving the same chairs again, won’t stop another crash. Yet again, we have senior bankers acting as regulators – it doesn’t work.

For example, looking back many people, including me, would say HBOS, in the years running up to the credit crunch, became an absolute basket case of a bank. With hindsight even PCoBS, the TSC and the Regulator, would have to agree. Point 137 (page 44) from the PCoBS report into HBOS (HBOS – An Accident Waiting To Happen. April 2013) concludes under the heading of “Conclusion – a manual for bad banking”:

The downfall of HBOS provides a cautionary tale. In many ways, the history of HBOS provides a manual of bad banking which should be read alongside accounts of previous bank failures for the future leaders of banks, and their future regulators, who think they know better or that next time it will be different. We will ourselves seek to draw further lessons from the case of HBOS as we frame recommendations for the future in our final Report. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201213/jtselect/jtpcbs/144/144.pdf

You can take your pick of damning extracts from the FSA Bank of Scotland Public Censure Report (March 2012) but I think point 4.14 explains a lot about the seemingly star struck Exec’s of BoS and their ‘risky’ management:

In relation to large leveraged transactions, these deals involved lending over £75 million or a substantial equity investment which meant they had to be sanctioned by the Executive Credit Committee. There was a significant increase in the volume and complexity of deals that this committee approved during 2006 and 2007. There were 199 approvals of lending in excess of £75 million in 2006 (which represented total

lending of £56 billion), which increased to 361 such approvals in 2007 (which represented total lending of £96.2 billion). There were 56 approvals of lending over £250 million in 2006 (which represented total lending of £36.2 billion), which increased to 110 such approvals in 2007 (which represented total lending of £64 billion. The size of these transactions meant that any default would have a high impact on the book http://www.fsa.gov.uk/static/pubs/final/bankofscotlandplc.pdf

I’m interested in that extract because it confirms how the excessive loans to companies like Corporate Jet Services Ltd http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-the-cameron-crony-the-private-jet-company-and-a-crash-landing-that-cost-taxpayers-100m-9350090.html had to have been authorised by very senior people in the Bank and not, as LBG would have us believe, by a regional bank manager. But in truth, it wasn’t just BoS that was running amok – it was the whole of HBOS. But the FSA didn’t censor HBOS and maybe because the CEO of HBOS held a senior position in the FSA ?

I remember having a conversation with Bill Sillett (the named respondent for any queries about the Censure Report) who visited Paul and I in April 2012. I asked him back then why the Report only covered the period from 2006 to 2008 when I know for a fact HBOS was acting like a fruit loop from at least 2002. Here’s his reply, taken from my notes of the meeting 11th April 2012:

BS spoke briefly about the time scales of the FSA report and why they chose the period 2006 to 2008. He said Crosby was effectively out of the bank in that period. He said they chose that narrow remit because going back further could have involved another year of work.

I think “Crosby was effectively out of the Bank in that period” is highly significant. Obviously, had the report highlighted poor management of BoS when Crosby was the CEO of HBOS (parent of BoS), it would have caused a few red faces for the FSA. But what I still find amazing is – Mr Crosby may have come out of the Bank in 2006 but, from November 2007, he went from being a Director of the FSA to Deputy Chairman – and that was in the same period when HBOS was already under heavy scrutiny by the Bank of England. And even when the proverbial hit the fan in October 2008 and HBOS got the secret £25.4BN, apparently no one in the Tripartite Authority felt it was inappropriate for Sir James, as he was then, to continue on as the Deputy Chair of the Authority most responsible for regulating banks!

I make the point in my book:

Aside from the fact the people advising the Bank of England on how to cope with various banks losing hundreds of billions of pounds were predominantly bankers (from commercial banks), I’m very confused by the fact Gordon’s chum, Sir James Crosby (now plain old Mr Crosby), the former CEO of HBOS until mid 2006, managed to retain his position of Deputy Chairman of the FSA right through the credit crunch, the bailouts and beyond? Did Gordon Brown realise the FSA were supposed to monitor the Banks so that such disasters couldn’t happen? Had he even heard of the FSA I wonder? (NEXT PASSAGE REDACTED)……..

……..So why did JC keep his position with the regulator? Possibly it was so his friends in high places, like Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, who appointed him to oversee Government projects, wouldn’t get egg on their faces. In 2006 Gordon appointed JC to lead a ‘Public, Private Forum’ on Identity theft and in April 2008 Alistair Darling appointed him to advise the Government on how to “improve the functioning of the mortgage markets.” And then, of course, there was his knighthood in July 2006 for services to the financial industry.

Oh well, water under the bridge now and Sir James did eventually resign from the FSA in February 2009 when the allegations made by Paul Moore in 2004, could no longer be ignored. Although according to both the FSA and James Crosby, his departure was nothing to do with Paul Moore. Here’s a statement from La La land, as reported by the BBC 11th February 2009:

Sir James said in his statement that HBOS had “extensively investigated” Mr Moore’s allegations, concluding that they “had no merit”. Mr Moore was the former head of risk at HBOS.

“I nonetheless feel that the right course of action for the FSA is for me to resign from the FSA board, which I do with immediate effect,” Sir James added.

The FSA said: “[The] specific allegations made by Paul Moore in December 2004 regarding the regulatory risk function at HBOS were fully investigated by KPMG and the FSA, which concluded that the changes made by HBOS were appropriate.”

“It should also be noted that the FSA’s concerns about HBOS’ risk management framework considerably pre-dated the allegations by Mr Moore,” the FSA said in a statement.

Excuse me? The FSA’s concerns about HBOS pre-dated Paul Moore’s allegations and – what did they do about it? They made the CEO of HBOS a Director of the FSA in January 2004 and then promoted him to Deputy Chair. Confused – you should be.

Here’s the point – as at today’s date, the Chairman of the FCA, which took over from the FSA, is now John Griffith-Jones, who held the position of Chairman of KPMG at the time Mr Moore made his allegations and who must have sanctioned the report refuting those allegations. And, because, some would say that in the corporate world at least, “incest is best”, KPMG were also the auditors of HBOS at the time they prepared the report. I share the concerns of Ian Fraser – none of us should be reassured when the financial industry is so keen to ‘Keep it in the family.’ In June 2012, Ian wrote:

I was surprised and exasperated to learn last week that chancellor George Osborne has rubber-stamped the appointment of John Griffith-Jones, the senior partner of KPMG, as chairman-designate of the Financial Conduct Authority, one of the two financial regulators that will take over from the soon-to-be-disbanded FSA. As the news of this “revolving door”,“poacher-turned-gamekeeper” appointment sank in, my disappointment bordered on outrage.

http://www.ianfraser.org/financial-regulation-with-griffith-jones-appointment-britain-keeps-it-in-the-family/

I was equally outraged Ian – and I begin to wonder what kind of ‘family’ the big banks and their auditors belong to? The Corleone family?

Meanwhile, over at the FRC, Sir Win Bischoff, former Chairman of Lloyds Banking Group (the parent of HBOS), has taken the post of Chairman while simultaneously becoming the Chair of a division of JP Morgan. You could not make it up!

I put up some details the other day about the history of the great and good on the Board of the PRA. https://spandaviablog.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/sir-win-bischoff-chairman-of-the-frc-and-also-a-chairman-of-jp-morgan-the-revolving-door-to-la-la-land-is-spinning-off-its-hinges/

Question: in the same way I sincerely doubt Sir James Crosby (as he was) was ever seriously going to let the FSA rumble the many and varied dodgy scenarios going on in HBOS while he was Deputy Chair, does anyone really believe John Griffith-Jones or Sir Win Bischoff are the right people to head up our regulators? Is Win Bischoff ever going to expose anything really bad that happened in Lloyds under his watch? Is Griffiths-Jones going to take action against KPMG or the HBOS audits under his watch. Is the forthcoming report into the failure of HBOS really going to highlight anything that would compromise those members of the ‘family’ who are still active?

Are we really on the road to reform in our banking sector – or have the powers that be, just made moved the chairs on the Titanic yet again and put the same established and reliable old foxes in place to guard the chicken coups? In my opinion, all this talk of reform is just tokenism.

I am fully aware the PRA are in the process of preparing the report on the failure of HBOS. I am also aware – as is Paul Moore – they fully intend to exclude issues that were fundamental to the Banks’ failure. Apparently, some of the really catastrophic or even criminal conduct in HBOS, is not considered relevant and consequently, is not part of the PRA remit. Yet again, they are not going against ‘the family.’