Failed UK dotcom business Izodia has successfully sued the Royal Bank of Scotland International for negligence after St Saviour resident Gerald Smith transferred £27.25m of its money into a newly opened account.
The Royal Court judgment could have serious implications for the Island’s finance industry and international reputation after the bank was criticised for not acting in accordance with its own mandate.
And in further embarrassment for the industry, and RBSI in particular, it was also revealed during the two-week hearing that a relationship manager at the bank had a ‘close and pre-existing relationship’ with Smith, which the bank’s management had already considered ‘inappropriate’.
This relationship between Smith and RBSI employee Gerard Gowans enabled the account to be set up and the money to be transferred within days.
Smith (51), who used to live at Steep Hill at the foot of St Saviour’s Hill, and who still owns the property, is due to be sentenced in London next month for ten counts of fraud and one count of false accounting.
