A GROUP representing more than 140 small businesses has declared its intention to launch a £1 billion legal action against Royal Bank of Scotland over alleged mistreatment by its Global Restructuring Group before the end of the year.
The Herald revealed in June that RGL Management Limited was giving small businesses which believe they were pushed under after being moved into the GRG the opportunity to join a legal action against RBS.
At that stage RGL, led by chief executive James Hayward, said a fighting fund had been put in place and that a full legal team had been assembled to work on a success fee basis. RGL is now saying the action could be launched before the end of the year, having become frustrated with delays to the publication of the Financial Conduct Authority’s report into GRG. The report had been due last year.
RGL claims that even when the FCA report is published it may not lead to adequate compensation for companies involved. A spokeswoman for RGL said small business owners in Scotland are among its claimants. She said the average claim will be worth £6 million to £7m, taking the aggregate claim size to £1bn.
The development is a further setback to state-owned RBS. Earlier this month it booked a £2bn first-half loss after setting aside a further £1.3bn for litigation and conduct costs.
RBS has previously said it would defend the claims but declined to comment yesterday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here