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’.

Panel update on process for approving costs for professional fees – March 2023

We are keen to shorten and streamline the professional costs approval process to minimise unnecessary delays in our being able to issue Customer decisions. To achieve this, we have removed the current provisional costs decision stage to enable Peter Hurst (‘PTH’) instead to take into account any comments raised by LBG and the Customer’s advisers and simply proceed to issue a final decision.

In accordance with the existing (and continuing) guidelines Customers’ advisers must, please, ensure they provide all the necessary detail when making the application to avoid delays and further rounds of queries. Customers’ advisers will be required to copy in LBG when making their application to PTH, with LBG expected to provide any comments within four working days, to which the Customers’ advisers will be invited to respond within four working days. Applications and comments should be concise and properly focused by reference to the published guidelines. This is to ensure the process is as swift and efficient as possible for the benefit of Customers as a whole.

A link to the revised version of the Policy and Guidance is here. Customers with an outstanding costs application will be contacted individually by PTH about this.

Please note that a separate policy will be put in place in due course to cover the costs of tax advice to Customers in connection with tax on their award. We will be issuing new guidance on tax matters in the coming weeks.

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.