Robin Leigh-Pemberton
Robin Leigh-Pemberton served as the Governor of the Bank of England.
Robin Leigh-Pemberton served as the Governor of the Bank of England.1
Role in BCCI Scandal
Leigh-Pemberton, along with Deputy Governor Eddie George, was aware of the disastrous 1990 Price Waterhouse audit of BCCI, which revealed that many of BCCI's transactions were "fraudulent and deceitful."2 Despite this knowledge, the Bank of England agreed to a plan in spring 1990 to allow BCCI to move its headquarters to Abu Dhabi and for Sheikh Zayed to take over the bank.3 This action effectively concealed BCCI's problems from its depositors and creditors.4
On June 28, 1991, Leigh-Pemberton and George decided to act, informing the Federal Reserve Bank of the impending seizure of BCCI in the United Kingdom.5 The Bank of England had been reluctant to shut down BCCI, despite knowing of its insolvency, and had been trying to persuade Sheikh Zayed to inject more money.6
Testimony to Parliament
Robin Leigh-Pemberton told the House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee that on receipt of the Price Waterhouse reports of April and October 1990 the Bank had been "alerted to [fraud and deceit]," but that "our view was that even if this added up to individual acts of fraudulent conduct it did not give evidence of a system of fraud throughout the Bank which was wide enough to justify closure. I hope it does not shock you too much, it is only a matter of realism that we do have occasions of fraud in banks... if we close down a bank every time we find an individual act or two of fraud we would have rather fewer banks than we do at the moment." On warning depositors he said: "A hint from the Bank of England that somebody on our list may not be quite pukka would be the kiss of death to the future of a bank." He added: "I am sorry to say we have to leave it people to make their best judgment as to whether any one of those institutions is or is not fit to be a depository for the purpose they want." The Kerry-Brown Senate Report quoted the testimony in its findings that the Bank had kept BCCI's problems secret from its depositors from April 1990.7
Relationships 1
Sources
- Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 10. ↩
- Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 135. ↩
- Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 135. ↩
- Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 135. ↩
- Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 146. ↩
- Beaty, Jonathan and Gwynne, S. C. The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. New York: Random House, 1993, p. 55. ↩
- Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 12, "The Regulators." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/12reg.htm ↩
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