Former RBS CEO Fred Goodwin stripped of knighthood
31.01.2012
Former RBS CEO, Fred Goodwin, has lost the knighthood bestowed on him in 2004 for "services to banking".
The UK’s Cabinet Office said the decision to cancel and annul the knighthood “was taken on the advice of the Forfeiture Committee, which advised that Fred Goodwin had brought the honours system in to disrepute”.
It said the scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS had made this an “exceptional case”.
“In 2008 the Government had to provide £20bn of new equity to recapitalise RBS and ensure its survival and prevent the collapse of confidence in the British banking and payments system,” said the Cabinet Office in a statement. “Subsequent increases in Government capital have brought the total necessary injection of taxpayers’ money in RBS to £45.5bn.”
It said investigations were carried out by both the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury Select Committee into the reasons for this failure and its consequences. “They are clear that the failure of RBS played an important role in the financial crisis of 2008-9 which, together with other macroeconomic factors, triggered the worst recession in the UK since the Second World War and imposed significant direct costs on British taxpayers and businesses. Fred Goodwin was the dominant decision maker at RBS at the time.
“In reaching this decision, it was recognised that widespread concern about Fred Goodwin’s decisions meant that the retention of a knighthood for ‘services to banking’ could not be sustained.”