What must Deloitte prove?
To succeed, Deloitte, through its City law firm Lovells, must prove that Bank officials not only blundered, but also acted dishonestly and recklessly by failing to perform their duties. Regulators “shut their eyes and turned away” from BCCI’s fraudulent activities so that they could not be blamed,” according to Gordon Pollock QC, representing Deloitte. What does the Bank say? It says the action is “not only misconceived, but outrageous.” To accuse 22 supervisory officials and staff of a massive cover-up over 11 years and of deliberately misleading the Bank’s governors is to compare them with crooks and fraudsters, the Bank argues. In any case, it would have been pointless to cover up something that was bound to emerge when BCCI collapsed. Why has the case taken so long to come to court? When BCCI was shut down, the liquidators fought hard to recover what money they could for tens of thousands of depositors – many in the UK – left out of pocket. Against the odds, through various legal a
