A group of “diehard” RBS shareholders, determined to see Fred Goodwin stand up in court, have refused to accept the bank’s offer of a settlement.
In a last-ditch attempt to avoid a case that would see the former chief executive take the stand, the state-backed lender has offered about £200m, or 82p per share held by investors.
About half of the 9,000 claimants in the case, including current and former employees, are understood to be among those who have not accepted RBS’ offer.
A further group of shareholders has already settled at 41p per share.
The claimants allege former executives gave a misleading picture of the bank's financial health ahead of a cash call in 2008. Months after the cash call, RBS had to be rescued by the government with a £45.8bn bailout.
Shareholder Neil Mitchell told the The Guardian that a hardcore group will not settle under any circumstances.
“For many people, it’s never been about money, it’s been about principle and justice, and about seeing senior board members of the bank brought to trial,” he said.
“There are a lot of pensioners [among the claimants], many of whom are ex-RBS employees.
“When they went to presentations by Goodwin, they weren’t just encouraged to put their bonus in, but to put their savings in, even to go and borrow money.
“That’s why some people are diehards. But there are also financial institutions that feel the same way, that this should go to trial.”
The case, which threatened at one time to be the largest and costliest in British legal history, originally pitted the bank against five main claimant groups, all but one of which have settled with the bank.
RBS doubled its offer to the remaining RBoS Shareholder Action Group on Monday in a bid to avoid a potentially embarrassing trial.
Some inside the shareholder group are keen to settle, while a few are more determined to force Mr Goodwin and his colleagues to defend their actions during the bank's ugly near-demise in 2008.
RBS, which remains more than 70 per cent state-owned, denies any wrongdoing over the 2008 rights issue and says its former bosses did not act illegally.
