Nigel Farage has slammed a new report suggesting he was not discriminated against for his political views, describing it as a “work of fiction”. The independent probe was launched by law firm Travers Smith after he accused upmarket bank Coutts of debanking him for his political views.
Earlier this year the bank’s owner NatWest admitted serious failings in the way the politician’s account was managed.
But today the law firm said there was no evidence of discrimination against him. Travers Smith examined 84 account closures over a two-year period to July, which were around 10pc of the 897 shut during that time.
In response to the report, Farage said: “The Travers Smith report is a work of fiction. It bears no relation to the contents of the documents disclosed by the bank as to the true reasons why they closed my account.
“The report does however admit there are serious deficiencies in the way NatWest close accounts in such a subjective fashion. The NatWest group now need to take a cold, hard look at their procedures.”
He added it was “strange” that Travers Smith did not speak to him, and said it was “laughable” they did not find evidence of political bias.
The report said their team “found no evidence of discrimination in any of the exit cases, including no evidence of a customer’s account being escalated for exit, or ultimately being exited, due to their political views or party-political affiliations, or any other protected characteristic”.
However, it added Coutts could improve the way “exit decisions are communicated to customers”, while Coutts boss Mohammad Syed said it is “clear there are lessons to be learned”. It said Coutts may have breached City regulations by failing to give 60 days’ notice before closing accounts and by failing to tell clients why they were being ousted.
He added: “The experience of some of our customers fell short of what they should expect and we apologise to them.”
Lawyers did however identify two cases where NatWest closed the accounts of customers who it believed were unaligned with its “purpose”. This includes promoting diversity and addressing the climate crisis.
Travers Smith said there were other factors at play in those cases. This included the fact they were too costly to manage, or posed a reputational risk for the bank. Both were ultimately escalated to the bank’s reputational risk committee.
NatWest CEO Alison Rose quit in July after she was found to have been discussing Farage’s account closure with a BBC journalist.
