British Banking Crook Stripped of his Knighthood
January 31, 2012 at 5:34 PM Leave a comment
Fred Goodwin, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s former chief executive officer, was stripped of his knighthood by the U.K. authorities after he led the 285-year-old lender into the world’s biggest bank bailout.
Britain’s Honors Forfeiture Committee met last week and decided that Goodwin should lose his knighthood for services to banking in the light of the collapse, the Cabinet Office in London said in a statement today. He was awarded the honor, entitling him to call himself Sir Fred, in the name of Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.
“This decision, not normally publicized in advance, was taken on the advice of the Forfeiture Committee, which advised that Fred Goodwin had brought the honors system into disrepute,” the Cabinet Office said. “The scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS made this an exceptional case.”
Edinburgh-based RBS needed 45.5 billion pounds ($71.7 billion) of U.K. government money after Goodwin, now 53, led its takeover of Amsterdam-based ABN Amro Holding NV in 2007.
According to the article, stripping someone of a knighthood doesn’t have any particular legal repercussions; the significance is the humiliation factor. But hey, that’s more than any of the robber barons on this side of the pond have experienced.
In the fall of 2008, while George W. was slinking out the door, We the American people bailed AIG out to the tune of $187 billion. So far? Nada.
Entry filed under: Financial Crisis. Tags: bank bailout, robber barons, royal bank of scotland group.
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