CITY watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has told the Treasury Select Committee why it missed yesterday’s deadline for publishing a report on a controversial Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) business restructuring group.
In a letter to committee chair Nicky Morgan, FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey said it “has not proved possible” to obtain all the consents needed to publish the document from Promontory Financial Group into the Global Restructuring Group (GRG). It came after the FCA was criticised for “completely” losing control of the review, which was leaked earlier this week and shared openly on social media.
Morgan last week ordered Bailey to release the report, but yesterday he wrote: “It is regrettable that the report has been leaked but this does not allow us to publish. I do want to make it clear that it is not our intention to frustrate or impede the work of the committee, quite the reverse in fact, and with that in mind we are providing the report as required.”
Morgan has said the influential committee could make the report public itself using parliamentary privilege as early as next week after its scheduled meeting on Tuesday.
“At that meeting, I will be asking members to agree to publish the final, unredacted report under parliamentary privilege as soon as possible,” she said.
Bailey said one of the main concerns the FCA had about publishing the document was the inclusion of statements “about how much GRG management knew about the failings in GRG”.
However, in an earlier letter, he cautioned the MPs against publishing the report themselves, writing: “If the committee decides itself to publish the report, it will no doubt want to consider carefully the precedent of publishing a document obtained from the FCA under parliamentary privilege where the FCA considers that it is legally constrained from publishing the document itself.”
RBS has been dogged by claims that GRG intentionally pushed small businesses towards failure to pick up their assets on the cheap.
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