- Injustices within companies occur too often
- If they do, they must be corrected quickly and forcefully
- Victims of HBOS Reading and RBS GRG will wish there was a drama about them
She is the unacceptable face of the post office scandal. But Paula Vennells’ behavior should not lead us to forget that there were other bad bosses involved in that terrible case.
Nor should we overlook the other cases of blatant corporate bullying and injustice that have destroyed lives, such as the HBOS Reading scandal and the behavior of the GRG unit at NatWest.
The financial services industry is littered with arrogant executives. The predecessor of Vennells Post Office was Alan Cook, who was conspicuously absent from the fray.
After overseeing the prosecution of 161 innocent postal workers, he became chairman of insurance company LV. There he led a lame-duck effort to sell the 180-year-old mutual, owned and run by its members, to private equity.
At the time, I noted that his and CEO Mark Hartigan’s actions were so ridiculous they were like the Laurel and Hardy of insurance. Except it wasn’t remotely funny. The pair attempted a takeover against the interests of their members, relying on inertia and misleading propaganda to win the vote.
Bad Boss: Paula Vennells is the unacceptable face of the Post Office Scandal
The private equity bid was rejected because members refused to back it in sufficient numbers following a campaign by the Ny Breaking and Mail on Sunday.
The injustice here cannot be compared to that of the post office. But it typifies a certain mentality among corporate panjandrums. They know best and in their eyes members, customers and employees are fodder for their ambition. And now that the nation is united in anger over the Post Office scandal, spare a thought for the innocent ordinary people whose lives have been ruined in other shameful events. Victims of two major banking debacles, HBOS Reading and RBS GRG, will wish there had been a drama about them.
At the Reading branch of HBOS, now owned by Lloyds, six bankers and advisers defrauded millions of pounds from business clients between 2003 and 2007.
The six, who squandered the money on luxury holidays and whores, were sentenced to a maximum of twelve years in prison in 2017. A small businesswoman I spoke to then told me how when her company fell into their clutches, she lost her business and her marriage. It felt, she said, like “financial rape.”
Lloyds has apologized and says lessons have been learned. More than £100 million has been paid out to victims. Yet, twenty years later, the case is still not fully resolved. The bank launched a study into customer cases in 2017. In 2019, it began an independent quality review of the initial assessment, led by Sir Ross Cranston, who, while recognizing the generosity of the scheme, found a number of shortcomings. As a result, a reassessment took place, led by a retired judge.
Still with me? To date, more than 50 percent of victims have accepted a tax settlement of £3 million (net) – implying that almost half have yet to receive compensation. One in ten has not yet received a first decision.
A separate investigation by Dame Linda Dobbs into whether Lloyds did proper research has yet to be reported.
Some customers of Royal Bank of Scotland’s former GRG division, now NatWest, who say their businesses have been crippled by the actions, are still chasing compensation. In 2019, the Financial Conduct Authority said that because GRG dealt with small businesses and not individuals, it was largely unregulated and there wasn’t much it could do about it.
The makers of the Post Office drama have done a great service. Injustices within companies occur too often. If they do, they must be corrected quickly and forcefully.