[2025] UKUT 00185 (TCC)

On 8 January 2019, Ms Gillan emailed the PRA to organise a meeting to discuss progress on the Bank’s AIRB application, and adding:

“David and I would like to update Supervision on the outcome of RWA review that we have recently undertaken, supported by Deloitte. We would therefore like to set up a call or meeting as soon as diaries allow to report back on the outcome. We hope this will then allow us to revisit earlier conversations with Supervision about application of the Pillar 2A off-set approach outlined in the statement of policy on the PRA's methodologies for setting pillar 2 capital.”

On 11 January 2019, Mr Arden and Ms Roberts met with Mr Lane. There were inconsistencies in the witness evidence as to what was said by Mr Arden at that meeting. Mr Stanley did not cross-examine on that point on the basis that it was not relevant to the case being made by the Authority, and for the same reason, we have decided that we did not need to make a related finding of fact.

On 12 January 2019, Mr Arden and Ms Roberts had a conference call with the Bank’s brokers; this was also attended by Linklaters. Ms Roberts’s contemporaneous note of the call (approved by Mr Arden) said that “the conversation focused on what is outstanding for variables and uncertainties”, which were as follows:

On 18 January 2019, Mr Arden, Mr Donaldson, Ms Gillan and Ms Roberts met with Mr Lane. In reliance on Ms Roberts’s contemporaneous note we find that Mr Donaldson said that “conversation with the PRA is ongoing and a negotiation and that they have discretion to make alternative judgements/solutions in private conversations”, and that:

“[Mr Arden] discussed the possibility that [the PRA] would allow us to ringfence £300m of RWAs for sale (and hence potentially not require us to increase the number) and that [the PRA] could allow the remaining £600m to be phased in over a period and clarity on that is needed before we inform the market of this.”