RBS settles businessman’s £700m libor-related mis-selling claim out of court

Stuart Wall, owner of Opal Property Group, alleged that Edinburgh-based RBS mis-sold his company an interest-rate swap, which contributed to the collapse of the business in 2013.

Mr Wall was suing the bank for between £114 million and £669 million, with the case due to come to court in October.

While terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, the four-year-old settlement of the claim may well have cost the bank something towards the upper end of the case’s reported value.

An RBS spokesperson said: “The action has been settled without any admission of liability by the bank. The terms of the settlement are confidential.”

The settlement comes just a week after it emerged that US government agency the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has named RBS in a legal action which has the potential to become the largest Libor-related lawsuit yet.

The FDIC claims that the conduct of nine UK banks skewed Libor against the banks it had to rescue during the financial crisis.

The US agency has brought the claim at the High Court, in which it alleges that the banks colluded to hold down borrowing rates through the Libor mechanism for several years, a practice known as “lowballing”, to give the market a false idea of their financial health.