Lord Green under pressure over HSBC money laundering

By Philip Aldrick, and James Kirkup

Emails released as part of a US Senate investigation this week show that he was warned about compliance failings and potential criminal involvement in money laundering for Mexican drug gangs, but failed to grapple with the problem.
 

Lord Green was warned in 2005, two years after being made chief executive, by an internal whistleblower in Mexico that compliance staff had “fabricated records”. He was also informed in 2008, after becoming executive chairman, that the Mexican authorities had unearthed evidence of money laundering that “may imply criminal responsibility of HSBC”.
 

Despite the warnings, and subsequent internal investigations, HSBC “made no effort to identify any suspicious activity [until] mid-2009”, the Senate report said. It also claimed HSBC’s Mexican operation was allowed “to operate with multiple anti-money laundering deficiencies ... for years” after the business was bought in 2002 for $1.1bn.
 

Mexican regulators yesterday claimed they had warned HSBC about weaknesses in its money laundering system in 2002.
 

Lord Green remained at the helm of HSBC until he joined the Government until 2010. The report, which found that HSBC had run multi-billion-dollar money-laundering operations for drug gangs, terrorists and rogue states, makes no allegations of wrongdoing by Lord Green.
 

 
Chris Leslie, a Labour Treasury spokesman, said the minister still has questions to answer. “The Senate report is so serious that the bank’s head of compliance has already resigned,” he said. “Stephen Green now has serious questions to answer about what he knew and when.”
 
Labour peer Lord Foulkes suggested Lord Green was too “embarrassed” to appear in Parliament. “The Scarlet Pimpernel of the House of Lords. Why does he not come to answer questions?” Lord Foulkes said. “Is it because he is so embarrassed that he was executive chairman of HSBC during the scandal?”
 
Lord Green’s office confirmed he was in the country. Downing Street sources insisted that David Cameron has full confidence in the minister and dismissed the Labour attack.
 
“As far as we are concerned, he’s not going anywhere – there are no allegations against him and all this information was already in the public domain,” said a No 10 source.
 
Lord Green is about to play a pivotal role in government efforts to use the Olympics to seal millions of pounds worth of trade contracts.
 
Four British banks are being investigated in the UK for alleged failings in anti-money-laundering controls following the revealations about lax control at HSBC in the Senate report, according to reports.