Pressure grows for stripping ex- RBS directors of their knighthoods
02 Feb 2012
In the UK,
Pressure mounted last night for stripping three more ex-RBS directors of their knighthoods with the pleas coming only 24 hours following the bank's former chief executive, Fred Goodwin, being thus disgraced.
All three, Sir Tom McKillop, Sir Stephen Robson and Sir Peter Sutherland were on the board RBS, as the bank hurtled towards disaster under Goodwin's watch. This led to 83 per cent of RBS becoming owned by the UK government in exchange for a financial bailout at the height of the global financial meltdown in 2008.
The chairman of the Independent Banking Advisory Group, Eddy Weatherill, said these people were sleeping while Goodwin drove the car over the cliff. He said one alone could not be blamed and it was like a football or cricket team. He added, he may have been the captain but there were plenty of other players picking up their cheques.
Weatherill fears the decsion to strip Goodwin of his title would work as a smokescreen. He said the danger was, if he became the scapegoat, there would be a bit of bloodletting to satisfy the mob and then everyone could get back on the gravy train.
The Financial Services Authority had heavily faulted Goodwin's management style in its report on the collapse of RBS published in December. Though not going as far of labelling him a bully, it found him ''cold, analyticaland unsympathetic''. The rest of the board also came in for criticism for failing to challenge him.
