By Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) - Senior politicians have lambasted Britain's financial watchdog for failing to take action against RBS (LON:RBS) or its former executives for past mistreatment of small business customers.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it was sticking by its decision not to apply penalties for actions of RBS's former turnaround unit, the Global Restructuring Group (GRG).
The mistreatment of businesses that were in financial distress and were moved into GRG is one of the biggest scandals RBS has faced in recent years.
Nicky Morgan, chair of parliament's Treasury committee, said the FCA's "long overdue" report would offer "no solace" to small business victims and called for the regulator's powers to be beefed up.
Fellow lawmaker Kevin Hollinrake, who is co-chair of parliament's all-party group for fair business banking, called the FCA's report "another complete whitewash" and said it demonstrated the regulator was failing to perform its role.
The backlash is a further setback for FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey, who is tipped as the frontrunner to succeed Bank of England governor Mark Carney. He has faced recent criticism over the regulator's handling of problems at investor Neil Woodford's troubled fund and the collapse of London Capital & Finance.
Bailey is facing a showdown with Morgan's Treasury committee on June 25.
"Our investigation has found that GRG clearly fell short of the high standards its clients expected, but it was largely unregulated and so our powers to take action in such circumstances, even where the mistreatment of customers has been identified and accepted, are very limited," Bailey said in a statement on Thursday.
A previous FCA report had found that GRG was responsible for widespread mistreatment of business customers between 2008 and 2013 and blamed former bank bosses for pursuing profits at the expense of the health of some companies.
The SME Alliance campaign group, which represents small businesses, said it was "deeply disappointed" with the regulator's decision.
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On Thursday the watchdog repeated its view that it did not have the powers to take action and that external legal counsel had agreed with its conclusion.
The FCA said that stronger powers have since been introduced to give it greater ability to act in future cases, though it could not say whether it would have been able to bring a successful case under the new rules.
The report did not name individual managers involved, which the watchdog said would not be "legally justifiable".
The FCA said that, in coming to its conclusions, it had been "required" to take into account the "unprecedented stress" inflicted on RBS by failings of former management in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
RBS Chairman Howard Davies welcomed the conclusion of the investigation and confirmation that no further action will be taken.
“The way the bank deals with business customers in financial difficulty today is fundamentally different to the aftermath of the financial crisis," he said.
"We are committed to ensuring that past mistakes cannot be repeated.”
