A group of former shareholders in Lloyds TSB has turned to Winckworth Sherwood as it prepares to launch legal proceedings against the bank.
Lloyds Action Now (LAN) has been set up to seek compensation from Lloyds and HBOS directors over alleged losses they suffered following the former’s takeover of the latter.
The group said it was pursuing a number of possible legal actions after Lloyds directors admitted openly that the bank’s merger with HBOS, which was agreed in September last year, went ahead without reasonable due diligence.
After the merger Lloyds discovered toxic debts in HBOS’s accounts totalling £15.8bn. This caused the collapse of the bank’s share value and forced the Government to take up to a 70 per cent stake in the merged bank.
The Government then suspended all dividend payouts until its preference shares had been bought out.
In a statement the company said: “Possible causes of action include negligent misstatement by Lloyds directors in the merger prospectus, the withholding of information by HBOS directors, a judicial review of the Government’s conduct and a derivative action against Lloyds’s banking and accountancy advisors.”
The launch of LAN will coincide with the annual general meeting of Lloyds Banking Group tomorrow (5 June).
The Lloyds shareholders should stop their bleating. It was a choice they made Greed was the motivation for voting for the acquisition. They did not give a thought for the poor people who will lose their jobs as a result of the creation of this so called superbank.
It wasn’t shareholders who voted for the acquisition. We were about 90% or more against at the egm. It was the bloody fund managers who always, corruptly in my view, support outrageous behaviour and insane remuneration of directors. I’ll be pointing that out tomorrow.
Ha! Yet another bunch of suckers pursuing hopeless and doomed litigation.
Have they not learnt their lessons from Railtrack, Northern Rock etc?
A classic case of throwing good money after bad, though no doubt the lawyers will be quite happy to spend the shareholders’ money until it runs out, at which stage they will regretfully conclude that the prospects of sucess are not sufficient to warrant further expenditure.