RBS Not Off the Hook Over GRG Scandal
by George Kerevan
(Bella Caledonia 6 Dec 2018)
LAST July the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the main UK regulator of the lending industry, announced it would take no disciplinary action against RBS over the outrageous activities of the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG), the internal unit that was supposed to turn around “struggling” businesses.In reality, after the Crash of 2008, a lot of the businesses put under GRG control were perfectly viable and most were capable of being returned to profitability. Instead, GRG deliberately undervalued debtor company assets (using compliant external valuers) in order to make it seem the firms had defaulted on their loan covenants. This allowed RBS to seize valuable assets cheaply and sell them off at a big mark-up, to bolster the bank’s capital.
Indeed, pillaged assets were often sold by GRG to another wing of RBS – West Register – at a knockdown valuation, in order to disguise what was going on. West Register would then break-up and sell the assets at a proper market rate. Call this looting and pillaging that makes the Vikings look soft. Such infamous conduct by RBS (and similar activity in other banks such as HBOS-Lloyds) is a cardinal reason why UK productivity did not recover after the 2008 financial debacle.
Why did the regulator, the FCA, not intervene?
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