R.B.S. Hires Former Barclays Lawyer as General Counsel 

The Royal Bank of Scotland said on Thursday that it had hired a top lawyer who used to work at its British banking rival Barclays to serve as its new general counsel.

The lawyer, Michael Shaw, served as deputy general counsel at Barclays for six years, leaving the bank last year. He was previously a partner at the law firm Herbert Smith and has served as joint secretary to the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers, an independent body that oversees merger regulation in Britain.

He joins R.B.S. as a variety of legal and regulatory matters have continued to drag on the bank’s results. The British government still owns about 73 percent of the lender after a multibillion dollar bailout during the financial crisis.

“The bank already has a strong legal team doing a great job, and Michael’s leadership will bring fresh insight and perspective to the wide range of issues the bank deals with,” Ross McEwan, the R.B.S. chief executive, said in a news release. “I look forward to welcoming Michael to the executive team.”

Mr. Shaw will join R.B.S. on April 19 and will oversee legal matters for the lender, including the areas of litigation, competition, capital markets and employment.

“I’m delighted to be joining R.B.S., and I’m looking forward to starting shortly and leading one of the most talented legal teams in the country,” Mr. Shaw said.

R.B.S., which is based in Edinburgh, has not reported a full-year profit since 2007.

In the fourth quarter, the lender took 2 billion pounds, or about $2.8 billion, in provisions for continuing mortgage-backed securities litigation in the United States and for charges related to payment protection insurance, which was often improperly sold to customers taking out mortgages, applying for credit cards or seeking other loans.

Improper selling of payment protection insurance has cost British banks billions of dollars, as they were ordered to compensate customers who filed complaints. The bank has set aside about £4.3 billion to cover redress related to the insurance.

Ewan Stevenson, chief financial officer of R.B.S., warned in February that the bank expected “further substantial conduct costs to come.”

R.B.S. is in the middle of a large restructuring as it shifts away from global ambitions to focus on retail and corporate banking in Britain and Ireland. The lender announced plans last year to dismantle its global investment bank and to reduce the number of countries in which it operates.

The British government is seeking to reduce its holding in the bank, raising about £2.1 billion in August in the first sale of shares it held in R.B.S.

On Tuesday, R.B.S. said that it had made a final payment of £1.19 billion to the government, fulfilling a condition of its bailout package that gave the government priority for dividend payments.

The payment moved the bank one step closer to being able to resume dividend payments to its shareholders. It has not paid a dividend since 2008.

Source: NYTimes

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