RBS chiefs named in Enron court papers

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The Scotsman
Ex-treasurer says power plant deal was illegal

JIM STANTON
DEPUTY BUSINESS EDITOR


A NUMBER of senior executives at the Royal Bank of Scotland may end up facing criminal charges in America after a key prosecution witness in the Enron scandal said he thought a deal between the collapsed energy group and the Edinburgh-based bank was fraudulent.

The witness, former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan, has admitted a number of deals he was involved in during his time with the Texan company were illegal.

And he has told a court in Houston that he believed a deal, involving a series of transactions between RBS and Enron between 1999 and 2001 involving a power plant in Teesside was not above board. It has been alleged that a deal was hatched between RBS and Enron which saw RBS buy the plant temporarily with an agreement to sell it back a few months later, helping inflate the energy company’s profits.

It was the artificial boosting of profits and concealment of debt over a period of years through a complex series of off-balance sheet transactions that eventually led to the collapse of Enron in 2001.
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