Enyo Law has come off the record for a group of businesses planning to sue the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) just one month after it was instructed.
A spokesperson for the group said Enyo came off the case following a “conflict of interest” related to its previous relationship with another RBS claimant group.
The group of businesses, named RGL Management, has now instructed Humphries Kerstetter on its claim.
The Lawyer revealed in March Enyo had taken on the high-profile instruction, having terminated its contract with parallel claimant group RBS-GRG Business Action Group after one year.
Both sets of businesses are planning to sue the Scottish bank over its global restructuring group (GRG), which they allege conspired to cause loss to their companies.
It emerged that the original group had instructed Taylor Wessing to bring a claim over Enyo’s switch to the new group of claimants.
Enyo Law partner Michael Green was leading for the claimants. He has now been replaced by Humphries Kerstetter senior partner Mark Humphries.
Humphries has instructed 3 Hare Court Chambers’ Simon Davenport QC on the claim. Green had previously engaged Blackstone Chambers’ Lord Pannick QC, Andrew Hunter QC and Andrew Scott.
Humphries said: “We are very pleased to have been instructed to represent RGL on such an important claim. From what we have seen, we believe there is potentially a strong case and we intend to move forward with it quickly.”
The claimant group is understood to have secured third-party funding for the investigation stage of its claim and will file its case later this year.
RGL is planning to bring the case based on an “unlawful means conspiracy” by RBS against its customers. It follows allegations made in the Tomlinson Report in 2014, which claimed the bank had used questionable property valuations through its GRG division to artificially downgrade viable businesses.
An independent review by Clifford Chance commissioned by the bank some months later found “no evidence the bank had systematically defrauded customers”, according to the report.
The serious allegation that RBS GRG defrauded customers is the subject of a number of cases currently in the High Court. Property Alliance Group’s £30m claim against RBS, which will go to trial in June, puts GRG at the centre of its claim, alongside allegations of Libor manipulation and interest rate swaps mis-selling.
When it goes ahead, the case could involve claimants from hundreds of small medium enterprises (SMEs) that were put into administration by GRG. A claim for damages could be “substantial”, according to a spokesperson for the group.
Prior to a claim being filed, RBS is not understood to have instructed a law firm on this matter. However the bank has turned to Dentons on the Property Alliance Group claim and Herbert Smith Freehills on a major £4bn shareholder claim over its 2008 £12bn rights issue.
The rights issue case, set to go to trial in March 2017, is brought by five separate claimant groups represented by Leon Kaye, Mishcon de Reya, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Signature Litigation and Stewarts Law.