RBS Throws $470,000 Executive Party After Getting Bailout Money

Our European friends aren’t immune to corporate fraud either, it seems. Shouldn’t this be a lesson to all of us that handing out public money to private corporations (especially with no strings attached) is simply a recipe for failure and public outrage?

The Royal Bank of Scotland has blown £300,000 on a secret champagne junket for executives – less than a month after being given a £20billion handout by the taxpayer.

Bankers and their partners enjoyed the lavish party to mark their ‘success’ after a year in which the collapse of the banking industry led to global financial meltdown.

The supposedly stricken bank laid on the celebration amid extraordinary secrecy to try to prevent details reaching the public, even cancelling the original venue, a top hotel in Hampshire, and transferring the party 350 miles north to Edinburgh.

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Last night an RBS spokesman said: ‘This was an entirely appropriate staff event to recognise outstanding performance by a small number of our staff.’

The spokesman would not be drawn on the cost of the cancelled booking at Chewton Glen. The previous night 300 executives-from another bank, HBOS – bailed out with £11.5billion of public cash – enjoyed a £330,000 party at an Edinburgh hotel.

Read the full article here.