Class action against Clydesdale Bank just months away

Today, RGL Management (RGL) sent a letter to NAB and Clydesdale Bank, following the banks’ responses to a Letter Before Action (LBA) issued in December, in which RGL requests NAB and Clydesdale provide a ‘substantive response’ by early May, outlining their main position on the allegations of fraud and dishonesty made against them.

It is expected that resulting legal proceedings will commence between mid and late 2018.

RGL also said that last month it had received its first response from NAB and Clydesdale to December’s Letter Before Action through which it was informed that NAB has appointed law firm Herbert Smiths Freehills to represent it, while Clydesdale Bank has appointed DLA Piper.

The update to the legal timetable was announced at RGL’s meeting with claimants, held yesterday in Glasgow at the Glynhill Hotel.

RGL said the meeting was the second in a nationwide series of events where registered and potential claimants have the opportunity to meet its team.

Over 50 new potential claimants attended the meeting in Glasgow, where senior members of the RGL team and legal counsel provided an update on the status of the claim, the process going forward, how to manage claims in Scotland compared to England and to answer questions from the floor.

Those businesses which had not yet joined the action were invited to do so at no cost.

RGL reiterated that even those businesses which may have already received some sort of compensation payment as part of the bank’s own “redress” procedure will be entitled to claim damages for a full recovery of losses as a matter of law, as will businesses which have also been put into liquidation or dissolved.

Members of the team present at the event included:

James Hayward, CEO of RGL, said: “What we have heard from our members certainly constitutes fraudulent behaviour by NAB and Clydesdale Bank. We are swiftly progressing our claim in order to achieve justice and appropriate recompense for those of our members damaged by the activity of the banks. We urge any affected businesses to join our group quickly, before it becomes too late for them to participate.”

CYBG, which is now Clydesdale’s parent firm following its sale by NAB, repeated yesterday that the allegations it received in a letter before action from RGA before Christmas are “not accepted by the bank and if necessary will be defended in the strongest terms possible.”

RGL’s action is funded by third-party litigation funders, Augusta Ventures.