Northern Rock bosses face MP grilling

Northern Rock
top executives Matt Ridley, chairman, and Adam Applegarth, chief executive, will
be among those giving evidence this morning before the Treasury Select Committee
on Financial Stability and Transparency.

Sir Callum McCarthy, Financial Services Authority (FSA) chairman, and Hector
Sants, FSA chief executive, have already faced tough questions from the MPs on
the last meeting on 9 October, in which they admitted FSA needed ‘to identify
what lessons to learn, and what improvements to make’.

Following the 9 October evidence session, John McFall MP, chairman of the
treasury committee, wrote to Sir Callum demanding more answers for this
morning’s meeting, including dates of each meeting of the FSA Risk Committee
since April 2006, indicating the dates of those meetings which were not attended
by Sir John Gieve, member of the FSA board and Bank of England deputy governor.

‘You also agreed to provide further information relating to the suggestion
that the FSA briefed against the Bank of England in the media in September,’
McFall’s
letter to Sir Callum said. ‘In doing so, it would be helpful if you could
confirm that you or senior staff of the FSA have contacted all relevant staff of
the FSA who briefed journalists in September and that they have all confirmed
that they did not undertake briefing against the Bank of England.’

Further reading:
FSA bosses grilled over Northern Rock
PwC slammed for Northern Rock non-audit work