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“Who Among You...” Extract from Nigel Henderson's powerful speech.

9/21/2016

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As many of our members know, Nigel Henderson gave a truly heart felt speech at the Cambridge International Symposium On Economic Crime earlier this month. We've had a lot of feed back on this and this has prompted us to do a shorter edit of the speech because Nigel's questions “who among you....” need to be broadcast far and wide as an example of the totally unacceptable and totally immoral behaviour of some banks.

I want to point out that SME Alliance never says all banks or all bankers are bad. Neither do we consider our remit to be “bank bashing.” From day 1 our remit has always been to lobby for 'access to justice' and to support owners of SMEs who have been abused by banks. Nigel's speech eloquently highlights exactly why we needed to form SME Alliance because it is nothing less than a travesty of justice he has had to make that speech after years of trying to get justice.

Below is a written version of the extract we've taken. It may not be exactly the same as the speech because like all of us at the Symposium, we added or altered things on the day. Either way these are powerful words that need to be heard and we're very grateful to Nigel and his wife Norma for letting us share their shattering experiences in public. I sincerely hope someone in authority in RBS listens to this speech and decides to act with integrity to put things right for the Henderson's. It's never too late to do the right thing.

Extract from Nigel Henderson's speech:
  • Let me just ask you this. Who among you have been targeted by bank managers determined to drive your business towards financial ruin?
  • Who among you have experienced endless meetings with professional advisers assuring you that what you dread will not happen as they assure you that your business is viable and that your asset base is more than capable of being used to repay the bank and allow you to continue in business?
  • Who among you have experienced that same bank continually promising you and your advisers that the bank does not want to destroy you financially and is willing to consider proposals?
  • Who among you have had arrogant bankers demand as a condition of continuing support, proposals from your advisers, and, when these proposals, formulated with great care by accountants and lawyers which take hours of preparation, and many hours of your time away from normal business duties, these carefully prepared proposals, all of which demonstrate viability for the future, are contemptuously dismissed by the same bankers supposedly offering you a lifeline.
  • In my book, those same bankers are morally repugnant in refusing every overture to take a conciliatory approach and deal honestly and ethically with the situation and give the business a chance for survival and continuity.
  • Who among you have experienced sleepless nights, tossing and turning trying to come up with any solution to avert, what you just know deep down, to be your life’s work about to be taken away from you?
  • Who among you have woken up in the mornings with dread in the knowledge that despite all your efforts and pleadings with the bank, these are falling on deaf ears?
  • Who among you have endured the realisation that you are going to be evicted from your house and home, and that the business you have dedicated a lifetime to with the intention of passing it to your family, is going to be forcibly taken from you through no fault of your own.
  • It is that anguish, that desolation, that despair and utter helplessness you feel knowing that you are headed for destitution, and that there is nothing you can do to avert it, and no one that can help because a bank has decided on a vindictive campaign against you just to satisfy its own criminal agenda to drive you into financial oblivion. What makes it all the more cruel is the fact that none of what has befallen you has been of your own making.
  • Who among you have experienced the gut wrenching heartache that comes with the announcement from the court that you are now bankrupt at the petition of an unscrupulous bank? And all this done within 4 years of moving to RBS!!
The full speech can be seen here:

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Fraud In And By Banks – The Ugly Truth

9/13/2016

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Further to our blog about the Cambridge Symposium on Economic Crime, here is the links to the speeches of our members Nigel Henderson and Clive May. Both were I think exceptional speakers and have given very clear examples of exactly how bad bank conduct can be. In both these instances the bank concerned was RBS but, as many of us know, RBS don't have the exclusive on this kind of conduct. So called 'business support units' in all the major banks have caused havoc for SMEs and I hope these videos are widely viewed by bankers as well as their victims!

These were shot on a GoPro filming from the back of the room so we couldn't do any fancy editing but it's what was said that's important. Hope you enjoy them (although enjoy is probably the wrong word). Please do retweet them and leave us your comments.

Disclaimer: The contents of this video represent the individual and/or personal views and comments of each speaker unless specifically stated to the contrary. SME Alliance Ltd does not accept any liability for any statements, comments or expressions of opinion of its individual members.
Disclaimer: The contents of this video represent the individual and/or personal views and comments of each speaker unless specifically stated to the contrary. SME Alliance Ltd does not accept any liability for any statements, comments or expressions of opinion of its individual members.
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34th Cambridge International Symposium On Economic Crime

9/8/2016

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Yesterday several members of SME Alliance attended the Cambridge Symposium On Economic Crime to put the case for some of the real victims of economic crime. This is the second year we have attended and both our sessions were very well attended with attendees from a broad spectrum of professions including lawyers, IPs, financial journalists and academics. It was also a truly international audience with people from America, Hong Kong, Nigeria and even Bermuda. ​
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In the morning session I was yet again struck by how confused people were by our members stories. Not that they didn't believe them and certainly both Clive and Nigel made a huge impact telling their stories but, all the same, I got the impression some people thought these were one off, very unusual stories as opposed to really common occurrences. And these are people who in one way or another deal with economic crime as part of their jobs – but they didn't recognise what we were saying as the huge systemic problem we know it is.

One woman was so shocked by what she heard she has said she'll give us some contacts with the mainstream US newspapers because she felt they would be stunned by our stories. Which made me wonder how SMEs in the US are fairing? Are they being ravaged by banks? Surely they are because we have their vulture funds here in the UK and Ireland causing absolute havoc. Are they not doing the same thing in America and is this because the regulators in America are more effective?
I won't go into detail about the speeches we made because Laura filmed all of the morning session and she's editing the videos now. One in particular is very sensitive and shocked everyone in the room to the point some of us were in tears. I hope to get permission to put this video up because the silence in the room while we all came to terms with what we were hearing says more than any words could ever say about the misery banks cause.
The speakers we've filmed include Nick Gould, Andy Keats, Nigel Henderson, Clive May, Heather Buchanen (for the APPG) and me (Nikki). 
​

We didn't manage to film the afternoon session but Joel Benjamin gave a brilliant presentation on Lobo loans so I will ask if we can have the presentation. 
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Mel Loades was hosting the afternoon session for us and when he opened the room up for questions there was an interesting debate on the merits of private criminal prosecutions. I have a feeling this debate will expand in the very near future! 

It was great to meet some of our new Irish members who flew over specifically to come to our sessions – more about that soon as we will be doing a lot more with our Irish members very soon. 
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We hope to have the videos up by tomorrow afternoon. Many thanks to all the SME Alliance members who attended and to all those who came to hear us. And as always a big thank you to Professor Barry Ryder and Angela Futter for the invitation to this brilliant event.
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