Harriet Harman on Sir Fred Goodwin

WestonDave

Two points on this.

Firstly the Govt will have to be very careful how they proceed on this, because if Goodwin (despicable as he is) is legally entitled to this money, an establishment witch-hunt against him for party political aims is going to land us in the European Court of Human Rights and a fine on top of the payout. I find it very hard to believe that the codes of human rights that we have would make it possible to retrospectively legislate to deprive someone of assets agreed in free will. Much as I wouldn't spit on Goodwin if he was on fire, I think we have to chalk this one down to Darling/Miner's incompetence and move on.

Secondly if there is to be legislation it should be to make it globally (i.e. across the board not internationally!) easier to kick out incompetent employees without having to give them some kind of back hander to avoid the risk of getting done in an employment tribunal. Far too often its easier to pay someone off than sack them which firstly falsely enriches them, secondly costs money and thirdly leaves the next unsuspecting employer vulnerable to taking on the cretin with a clean reference (almost always part of the pay off deal)

Goodwin is past - hand him over his pension pot to ringfence the loss and let him try to find decent returns on it - he'll struggle to get £650k a year out of it in the current return climate! He is simply an additional part of the "get the wunch of bankers" smokescreen which Brown is very happy to have to shield him from anyone realising that he (and to be fair his predecessors of both colours) were quite happy with the economic growth that occurred from all the risky lending and made no attempt to reign it in because it suited their interests at the time.

Guy_Montag

Sack the rest of the board (those who allowed the payout) for gross negligence.

You won't get the pension off Sir Fred by doing that, but nor will you break any laws or introduce any (extremely) dubious new ones. You will probably be able to recover £600k+ in pension benefits; Fred will become a hate figure for his former colleagues (they will have lost their jobs & benefits because of him); a shot is fired across the bows of all UK banking boards (do the same & the same will be done with you), & finally, you can stuff the board with old-style, Airdrie-Savings-Bank-esque managers.

Job done.

caroline1973lefty

Hear hear, Guy. :T

nicebelvoir

WestonDave wrote: »

Two points on this.

Firstly the Govt will have to be very careful how they proceed on this, because if Goodwin (despicable as he is) is legally entitled to this money, an establishment witch-hunt against him for party political aims is going to land us in the European Court of Human Rights and a fine on top of the payout. I find it very hard to believe that the codes of human rights that we have would make it possible to retrospectively legislate to deprive someone of assets agreed in free will. Much as I wouldn't spit on Goodwin if he was on fire, I think we have to chalk this one down to Darling/Miner's incompetence and move on.

As much as I'd like to agree with you, the government have already passed retrospective tax legislation aimed at specific employment groups. Anyone here remember Budget Note 66 (BN66) of the 2008 Budget?

No?

Thought not.

It retrospectively changed a law passed in 1987 to reword that law to ensure that HMRC could tax people (from several employment groups, mainly engineers, and perhaps pertinent to this board, property developers). The very brief explanation is that it was legal (until 2008 via 1987) to operate a tax scheme somewhere like the Isle of Man using something called a double-taxation treaty.

Up to BN66 the tax schemes used were legal, HMRC had challenged various participants of these schemes and lost virtually every case in the UK courts (if I remember correct, they lost somewhere in the region of 105 of 108 cases), so they put the clause into the last budget. Didn't get much coverage in the press.

We can argue the morality of tax avoidance schemes but they were legal (as the UK courts overwhelming agreed) and the HMRC knew about them since their inception in the 90's. They had every option to prevent the schemes but let them exist for a decade or so, and instead of saying, that's your lot, you can stop now, they backdated the law to increase tax revenues.



(And yes, in case you hadn't guessed, I am affected by BN66, though thankfully not for a huge amount.)

bubblesmoney

nicebelvoir wrote: »

As much as I'd like to agree with you, the government have already passed retrospective tax legislation aimed at specific employment groups. Anyone here remember Budget Note 66 (BN66) of the 2008 Budget?

No?

Thought not.

It retrospectively changed a law passed in 1987 to reword that law to ensure that HMRC could tax people (from several employment groups, mainly engineers, and perhaps pertinent to this board, property developers). The very brief explanation is that it was legal (until 2008 via 1987) to operate a tax scheme somewhere like the Isle of Man using something called a double-taxation treaty.

Up to BN66 the tax schemes used were legal, HMRC had challenged various participants of these schemes and lost virtually every case in the UK courts (if I remember correct, they lost somewhere in the region of 105 of 108 cases), so they put the clause into the last budget. Didn't get much coverage in the press.

We can argue the morality of tax avoidance schemes but they were legal (as the UK courts overwhelming agreed) and the HMRC knew about them since their inception in the 90's. They had every option to prevent the schemes but let them exist for a decade or so, and instead of saying, that's your lot, you can stop now, they backdated the law to increase tax revenues.



(And yes, in case you hadn't guessed, I am affected by BN66, though thankfully not for a huge amount.)

retrospective effects of new legislation in taxation matters has been successfully won by the govt in courts as far as i am aware. although am not certain if this was challenged in appeals in house of lords or european courts.

but the govt has lost in the house of lords in other cases on other issues concerning retrospective effects of new legislation and i dont think they wont stand the scrutiny in european courts under ECHR as the ECHR will over ride all UK legislation in matters goverened by ECHR as the UK is a signatory to ECHR and it is a binding convention.

other countries have tried retrospective effects of new legislation and these have been overturned by the courts in australia and canada as far as i am aware.

bubblesmoney

FOUR more fat cats from Royal Bank of Scotland are today exposed for raking in multi- million pension pots after running the bank into the ground.
One ex-director is enjoying an annual pension worth DOUBLE that of shamed former chief Sir Fred “The Shred” Goodwin.
..........................
Yet the total pension pot for the five RBS executives on the board last year—including Sir Fred—is an incredible £47MILLION.
........................
LARRY FISH, 64, former head of RBS operations in the US, is raking in a pension of £1.4million a year—twice as much as Sir Fred. He has a pension pot of £16.8million.

http://blogs.notw.co.uk/politics/2009/02/fat-cat-bankers.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2912452/Pension-funds-challenge-Royal-Bank-pay.html

chopperharris

Its a smoke screen , and hes a blame hound , but not entirely blameless , sure hes a arrogant son of a beach.

If hmg owns a maj stake in the running of rbs , "THEY" should have sacked him and then he would have lost his pension.The fact that they didnt incase it hurt the shares price further was probably their goal.

The retrospective use of new laws is illegal for the protection of us all from tyranny and persecution.This way when it doesnt happen hmg has the echr to blame for not denying his pension.

It will open a worrying precendent for employment contracts not just for fred but FOR EVERYONE even those with a small employer based one....in that anyone , including all the civil services police/army etc , and will be open to simply using this law to not pay a pension to any employee that wasnt sacked.

We should be more worried about that than paying the guy his contracted dues.

RabbitMad

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

I'm with John Prescott on this one.

Withhold the pension and let HIM sue.

GG

I had you down as a clever person GG. Of course he would sue, of course he would win and of course we (the tax payer) would end up picking up the tab.

Why waste all that money on legal fees.

This is all just hype and a smoke screen to divert attention to the fact Brown caused this whole mess.

Also a few point to others on here - earliest retirement age is 50 (up to 55 in 2010) except for a few professions. The max rate a pension can be accured at is full pension (2/3rds of final salary) after 20 years.

MrFonzerelli

You would need to change the law to make individuals (not just Fred!) responsible for corporation mismanagement, in past&present. Then you can carry out an investigation. Then examine withholding pension.
He and other irresponsible individuals can then sue if they wish.
Need to follow due process and get it right, shouldn't simply follow tabloid headlines.

chopperharris

RabbitMad wrote: »

I had you down as a clever person GG. Of course he would sue, of course he would win and of course we (the tax payer) would end up picking up the tab.

Why waste all that money on legal fees.

This is all just hype and a smoke screen to divert attention to the fact Brown caused this whole mess.

Also a few point to others on here - earliest retirement age is 50 (up to 55 in 2010) except for a few professions. The max rate a pension can be accured at is full pension (2/3rds of final salary) after 20 years.

so true , except that brown never caused the world credit meltdown.

but I also think your not entirely right on the pension max rate....there isnt a defined max rate , or lowest rate at all for all pensions.....and definately not private ones.

Final salary pensions , if there still is any employers left doing it that is.

You can retire at any age , assuming you have the means and mentality to do so.