MG Rover report: Four slated for Rover collapse
Lord Mandelson has asked the Treasury Solicitor to “consider the underlying documents and to compile the evidence that would be needed to commence director disqualification proceedings.”
The report, compiled at a cost of over £16 million over a four-year period, was highly critical of the Phoenix Four, who bought Rover from BMW for a nominal £10 in May 2000 at a time when Longbridge was running up annual losses of £700 million.
The four men were paid average salaries and pension benefits of over £1 million a year each throughout their five-year reign at Longbridge, despite losses at the car firm of tens of millions of pounds.
MG Rover finally closed in April 2005 with debts of more than £1.3 billion, throwing more than 6,000 people out of work.
The report does not directly recommend directorship bans.
The findings largely clear the Government, ministers and civil servants of any wrongdoing.
The publication of the report follows the announcement by Lord Mandelson a month ago that the Serious Fraud Office would not be holding a full investigation into the Phoenix Four’s role at Longbridge.
The delay to publication of the report has left £16 million languishing in a MG Rover Employee Trust Fund account, blocking payment of four-figure sums for former workers raised from the collapsed car firm’s assets.
