It's come to my notice that a formal legal challenge is to be launched against the Business,
The people driving this are known collectively as the 'Merger Action Group' (MAG), and have taken legal advice on this situation, which they feel deserves a fuller examination than that undertaken by Mandelson.
They state:
‘We are not taking this step lightly but feel it is in the interests of jobs, competition and the taxpayer that the decision must be seen to have been taken properly. The implications are so huge that we could not comfortably stand aside.’
Now, I don't normally quote verbatim at length from others, but now I'm going to make an exception.
For me, this encapsulates the process of dissimulation, dishonesty and mendacity which the Labour government has carried through with regard to this forced marriage.
"The circumstances which led to MAG’s formation and appeal began on September 16 when the HBOS share price fell to 88p, casting serious doubts on the bank’s ability to raise funds on the money markets. The following day, it emerged that HBOS was in advanced merger talks with Lloyds TSB.
The Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed that he had personally intervened to broker the deal and made clear the Government was prepared to ‘rip up Britain’s competition laws’ to allow the merger to go ahead. The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, added: ‘We have made a decision that we will waive the competition requirements in relation to these two banks – that’s not going to be revisited.’
On September 18, the then BERR Secretary John Hutton, announced the Government would introduce an intervention order to overrule a decision by the Office of Fair Trading [OFT] to refer the proposed merger to the Competition Commission.
By the beginning of October, it was recognised by both the
On October 31, Lord Mandelson – who had succeeded Mr Hutton – confirmed that he was overruling the OFT, claiming competition issues were outweighed by the public interest benefits of creating financial stability.
MAG’s case against the Secretary of State is based on three key points:
● In law, the Minister was obliged to keep an open mind when making his decision. However, statements made by the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer in September ‘fettered’ the Minister to keep an open mind in making his decision on October 31.
● Instead of using the legislation in place at the time of the merger as the justification for not referring the merger, the Secretary of State created new laws specifically to approve the merger, thereby retrospectively giving powers to himself that were not available at the time the merger was announced.
● The decision was predicated on the justification that if this specific merger did not take place HBOS would collapse and destroy stability in the financial system. Following the Government rescue package this was no longer the case, because there was provision for the Government to provide the capital as stated by the OFT, and therefore his decision was made on a false assumption.
MAG maintains that the ‘unlawful’ actions over the proposed merger of the Prime Minister, Chancellor and the Secretary of State are against the interests of fair competition, HBOS, its shareholders, its customers and its workforce, and that they are stifling competition.
Mr Fraser said: ‘The Government has gone out of its way to discourage alternative interests to come into play for the future of HBOS. This is not a level playing field. We aim to level it, and to ensure that the
‘Our primary concern – as recognised by the OFT report – is that the Government has ripped up the competition laws. These concerns will come back to haunt us in the future.
‘Lord Mandelson, in our view, is acting unlawfully.’
In addition to this, a national campaign is to be launched to support this appeal.
To go to the website, just click here.
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