Goodwin affair did not compromise RBS, say reports
Share
The Royal Bank of Scotland says the senior staff member who had an alleged relationship with former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin was not involved in key strategic decisions, according to reports.
The Financial Times says RBS launched an internal investigation into the relationship in March.
The enquiry reportedly looked at whether the employee, who still works at RBS, had any involvement in key decision making, judging credit risk, assessing regulatory issues or conducting internal audits.
The FT quotes a source as saying: “We have only known about this for several weeks and as soon as we did know we conducted an investigation. We are satisfied the employee in question did not compromise the bank in any way.”
Goodwin (pictured) took out a super-injunction to keep the details of the alleged affair private, but this week Liberal Democrat peer Lord Stoneham used parliamentary privilege to argue it is in the public’s interest to find out the details of the events that took place in the run-up to RBS’ near-collapse in 2008.
He said: “Every taxpayer has a direct public interest in the events leading up to the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, so how can it be right for a super-injunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague.
“If true, it would be a serious breach of corporate governance and not even the FSA would be allowed to know about it.”
The high court has varied the injunction to allow publication of Goodwin’s name but not details of the alleged relationship and the name of the woman said to be involved.
If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Money Marketing and Follow @_moneymarketing
