[2025] UKUT 00185 (TCC)

Factor (f) is whether the Authority had told either of the Applicants that it had concerns about the issue, either in a private warning or supervisory correspondence. The answer to that question is plainly “no”, but Mr Jaffey emphasised that in contrast to the PRA, the Authority had not given responsibility for supervising the Bank to a dedicated team, although the Bank requested this on numerous occasions and despite it being the seventh-largest bank in the UK. When the Bank needed to contact the Authority, it had to do so via the Contact Centre (see our findings at §72). Mr Jaffey submitted that the absence of supervisory support and the lack of a conduit through which to contact the Authority meant that there was no equivalent to the regulatory discussions which took place with the PRA.

The Authority asked us to find that the lack of a dedicated supervisory relationship was irrelevant to this factor. We agree. There is no evidence that the Bank would have taken a different approach to the CLIP loan issue, had the Authority made itself more accessible. The Bank were able to ask for advice on the Listing Rules, not only from the Authority’s Contact Centre, but also from Linklaters, but failed to do so. Instead, Mr Arden only asked for advice on the MAR, and even then he provided partial and incorrect information.