Strip Sir James Crosby of knighthood, says HBOS whistleblower
The whistleblower who exposed irresponsible lending at HBOS that led to its near collapse has called for former boss Sir James Crosby to be stripped of his knighthood.
Despite his role in the downfall of the bank, Crosby is hauling in nearly 1.2million in salaries from chairmanships and his pension from HBOS.
Whistleblower Paul Moore was sacked as head of risk by Crosby in 2005 after revealing the excessive risk-taking at the bank and its ‘dangerous’ sales culture.
Crosby left the bank the next year and was appointed deputy chairman of City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, by Gordon Brown.
He resigned in 2009 after Moore appeared before the Treasury Select Committee and accused Crosby of ignoring his warnings.
In the wake of the decision to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood, Moore has joined calls on the Government to annul the knighthoods of Crosby and other bankers implicated in the financial crisis.
Crosby’s knighthood was awarded in 2006 for services to the financial industry. Moore said: ‘I’m not in this for revenge.
But Sir James was in the unique position of being on both sides of the failure at HBOS. He was chief executive while these practices were occurring at HBOS and was deputy chairman at the FSA which failed to spot the crisis.’
Earlier this week Tory aparty deputy chairman Michael Fallon raised the prospect of a similar move against executives in Lloyds-HBOS after the FSA completes a report into the takeover.
Furious Lloyds shareholders are also calling for the head of former chairman Sir Victor Blank, who oversaw the ill-fated HBOS takeover.
But yesterday, sources close to the secretive forfeiture committee which annulled Goodwin’s knighthood suggested other top bankers’ gongs were safe.
It described Goodwin as an ‘exceptional’ case. Since leaving the FSA Crosby, who has a 572,000 a year pension from HBOS, has become chairman of IT giant Misys, which nets him a 180,000 salary.
He also recieves a salary of 432,806 as chairman at catering firm Compass Group. Meanwhile Moore is calling for an independent investigation into HBOS’s downfall, fearing that the FSA’s probe will be a whitewash.
He said: ‘The FSA has been completely conflicted in its investigations into RBS and HBOS.
There needs to be a proper forensic investigation.
The individuals involved should be subjected to enforcement action and have their knighthoods stripped away.’ Crosby declined to comment.
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