Deloitte drops £1bn BCCI case
BCCI liquidators Deloitte has dropped its £1bn damages case against the Bank of England
Big Four firm Deloitte has dropped its £1bn damages case against the Bank of
England after a High Court reserve judgement said the BCCI case was no longer in
the best interests of creditors.
Deloitte claimed that the Bank had failed to protect investors when BCCI
collapsed in 1991 and 6,500 people lost money, although the Bank has always
denied it was negligent.
According to a BBC report, Bank of England director Mervyn King was
pleased with the outcome.
‘There has never been a shred of evidence to support these disgraceful
allegations, and the case has collapsed as we always expected it would,’ King
was reported as saying.
Deloitte said it dropped the case as it believed it could recover money
outstanding more efficiently through other channels.
In 1993 Deloitte believed it would only be able to return 10% of lost funds
to creditors but has raised that expectation to 81%.
BCCI was founded by Pakistani banker Agha Hassan Abedi. The bank lost large
sums of money after starting up lending operations, foreign currency dealings
and deposit accounts in 69 countries.
BCCI was allegedly linked with the money laundering schemes of drug dealers
and terrorists.