APPG and SME Alliance statement on IAR Fraud Re-Review

The expanded definition of the IAR Fraud and scope of the panel will ensure that no one who was affected by the HBOS Reading Fraud who entered the original Lloyds Bank Customer Review will be excluded from the process.  For the avoidance of doubt, the statement today means that the only key threshold for consideration in the re-review is the involvement of Scourfield and Dobson, or any individuals acting under their direction, influence or control.  It is then for the panel to assess whether or not financial loss was suffered.

After campaigning long and hard to highlight the injustice of the original review and helping to secure the Cranston Review and the Re-Review, it has taken a great deal of work from all parties to secure this widening of its scope and jurisdiction. The Panel has the full support of the APPG and the SME Alliance and we are confident that they have the tools, flexibility  and expertise required to make fair assessments of the cases and are delighted they are now able to get on with the job of properly compensating victims.

Agreed Position Below:

Following discussions between the Panel, LBG, the APPG on Fair Business Banking and the SME Alliance, it has been agreed that the Panel will no longer have to focus solely on the influence or involvement of Quayside Corporate Services and/or its Associates (‘QCS’) when considering whether a Customer was a victim of the IAR fraud.  This has the effect of recognising that financial loss may have been caused to Customers by the actions of Lynden Scourfield or Mark Dobson that did not involve convicted individuals from QCS.

The Panel’s approach will, therefore, be to consider the extent to which the actions, inactions or influence of Scourfield or Dobson affected the Customer whether directly or indirectly (including by directing others acting at their behest).  For example, the Panel will consider matters such as whether either Scourfield or Dobson agreed to, encouraged, or influenced behaviour or actions that that led to the eventual destruction, demise or other damage to a company placed in the IAR, or caused the company representatives to take evasive action to their own detriment. In doing so the Panel will be able to draw inferences from all the material and circumstances available.

This means that Customers who were admitted into the Customer Review or have since been accepted into it, but whose businesses were not influenced by or had no involvement with QCS, will, if they have opted in to the Re-Review, have their claims for D&C losses considered in the same way as Customers who did have QCS involved in their case.

This widened approach relates only to the Panel’s decision as to which cases may fall within the definition of “the IAR fraud” for the purposes of the Re-Review, as described above.

The definition of the IAR fraud for the purposes of the Re-Review is now as follows :

“The fraudulent activity perpetrated through the IAR and the company called Quayside Corporate Services Limited (‘QCS’) and/or its Associates, or by Scourfield or Dobson without QCS.”

If the Panel does conclude that a Customer was affected by the IAR fraud, the Panel will still then have to assess whether the Customer suffered losses that they would not otherwise have suffered and, if so, how much.