Super-injunction protecting Fred Goodwin lifted
By politics.co.uk staff
A high court judge has lifted part of a superinjunction against former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin, after a peer revealed his name in the Lords.
Sir Fred used the injunction “to hide an alleged relationship”, Lord Stoneham told peers earlier today.
He used parliamentary privilege, which protects him from prosecution, to raise the matter which the courts had declared should not be raised.
“Every taxpayer has a direct public interest in the events leading up to the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, so how can it be right for a super-injunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague,” Lord Stoneham said in the Lords.
“If true, it would be a serious breach of corporate governance and not even the Financial Services Authority would be allowed to know about it.”
Sir Fred was widely reviled in early 2009 for insisting on a generous severance package. He left RBS after the bank was bailed out by the British taxpayer in October 2008.
A report from the master of the rolls commissioned last April, which will assess super-injunctions, is due out shortly.
Today’s developments follow the naming of a number of celebrities on Twitter earlier this month.
David Cameron has said he is “uneasy” with super-injunctions, which have helped celebrities and others hide details of their private lives. Super-injunctions prevent reporting of the fact an injunction has been put in place.
