AN influential committee of MPs is ramping up pressure on Britain’s financial watchdog to publish details of misconduct at Royal Bank of Scotland and has threatened to use “formal powers” to demand publication of a leaked report.
Nicky Morgan, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, has written to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) chief executive Andrew Bailey proposing to appoint Andrew Green QC as an independent legal adviser to compare the regulator’s impending summary with the underlying report into the scandal at RBS’s controversial restructuring unit.
The FCA has so far refused to publish the report in full, claiming that it would reveal confidential information about individuals, instead offering a detailed summary.
In the latest twist in the saga, Morgan said if the FCA refuses the proposal for independent legal scrutiny of the summary, or if the legal adviser does not provide the necessary assurances, the committee may look to force the FCA to publish. She said: “The committee wants the maximum possible transparency to be brought to this long-standing issue.
“With that in mind, it has proposed an arrangement under which it appoints an independent legal adviser to provide assurances that the FCA’s ‘summary’ closely reflects the underlying GRG report.
“If the FCA declines this proposal, or if the legal adviser cannot provide the committee with the assurances it needs, the committee may use its formal powers to require the FCA to produce the report.”
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