Law firm probe clears Ulster Bank

A major probe by a law firm found no evidence that Ulster Bank put viable companies out of business in order to seize their assets.

Dublin-based Mason, Hayes & Curran carried out the review of Ulster Bank’s Global Restructuring Group in the Republic of Ireland (GRGI) in the wake of widespread evidence in the UK and Northern Ireland that Royal Bank of Scotland’s Global Restructuring Group had systemically undermined viable businesses in order to take control of the underlying assets. Ulster Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RBS.

In compiling the report, Mason Hayes & Curran reviewed 32 customer case studies, interviewed 39 staff members and reviewed 140,000 pages of customer files and 24 policy and procedures documents. Its main findings include no evidence to substantiate the principal allegation in the Tomlinson Report that GRG in Ireland engaged in “systemic and institutional” behaviour in artificially distressing otherwise viable businesses and, through that, putting business “on a journey towards administration, receivership and liquidation”.