The Foskett Panel

Sir David Foskett has been appointed to chair the independent Re-Review Panel (also known as the Foskett Panel) to reassess the direct and consequential (‘D & C’) losses suffered by victims of the fraud committed at the ‘HBOS Impaired Assets unit based at Reading and Bishopsgate (‘IAR’)’. Sir David is joined on the independent Panel by Philippa Hill and Andrew Hildebrand.

The work of the Panel arises from the conclusions of Sir Ross Cranston’s report, known as ‘The Cranston Review’, published in December 2019. The Cranston Review concluded that the way Lloyds Bank had dealt with D & C claims in its original Customer Review was unsatisfactory and did not achieve the purpose of delivering fair and reasonable offers of compensation. He recommended that the process of assessing direct and consequential losses should be carried out again, but this time in a fair and proper manner. In a second report, published in April 2020, he suggested how the reassessment exercise might be carried out.

The Panel's Scope and Methodology Statement can be found here, and we have published guidance notes entitled ‘IAR Fraud and the Causation of Loss’ and ‘Quantifying D & C losses’.

Update from the Panel – July 2024

Update on our work and progress to date

For the purposes of the table above, a ‘decision’ refers to a Victim Status Decision (VSD), ‘Minded-to’ Decision (MTD), or a Final Decision (FD) issued to a Customer.

General Progress

Since our last update in April 2024, we have issued a further 12 decisions to Customers.

Decisions

There are 8 individual Customers (across 5 businesses) in the Re-Review who are yet to receive a first decision. Work on those Customers’ cases continues to be advanced and in the majority our Case Managers are awaiting information from the Customers or other sources to enable our work to proceed expeditiously. Our objective is to issue decisions for each of these Customers as soon as possible.

We have also continued to progress cases in which Customers have been assessed to have been victims of the IAR Fraud, but have chosen not to accept the Fixed Sum Award and have asked for their financial losses (if any) to be assessed. As we have noted previously, such decisions take a significant amount of time given the amount of work required by us and our team in order to undertake a full assessment of any financial losses. Minded to Decisions have been issued in a number of those cases.

Challenges to ‘Minded-to Decisions’

We are grateful for the continued co-operation of Customers and their legal advisers in providing grounds of challenge where a challenge to a Minded to Decisions has been intimated. The timetabling of responses by Customers and advisers by our Case Managers has helped progress in many of those cases. As mentioned in our update in April, in the very few cases where there remain significant delays in the supply of grounds of challenge, in order to bring the Re-Review to a conclusion we will have to consider stipulating a deadline for the receipt of those grounds and issuing a final decision in default of meeting that deadline.

Tax Update

HMRC has confirmed that all Customers’ awards are subject to UK taxation. Detailed information can now be found on our website (here) regarding the taxation of Customer awards. As the website explains, the process and tax position is different depending on whether a Customer has received the Fixed Sum Award or a Panel Award (following a full review of financial losses). We will be in touch with each individual Customer who has received a Panel Award regarding the process for assessing and issuing their Tax Award.

David Foskett
Philippa Hill
Andrew Hildebrand

Video Update from Sir David Foskett – April 2021

For the FAQ videos referenced in the above update, please click here.

If you have any questions or comments in the meantime, please contact info@foskettpanel.com.