{"id":74270,"date":"2026-07-01T15:27:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/74270\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T15:27:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:27:39","slug":"natwest-hit-with-250m-lawsuit-tied-to-thurrock-council-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/74270\/","title":{"rendered":"Natwest hit with \u00a3250m lawsuit tied to Thurrock Council scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tWednesday 01 July 2026 9:50 am
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\tWednesday 01 July 2026 3:38 pm\n\t<\/p>\n

\"NatWest\t\tNatwest has been caught in a local council scandal. \t<\/p>\n

Natwest could be on the hook for more than a quarter of a billion pounds for allegedly aiding a businessman in secretly transferring funds from his investment<\/a> firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The FTSE 100 giant\u2019s<\/a> subsidiary \u2013 the Royal Bank of Scotland \u2013 has been engulfed in the collapse of Rockfire Group, which was triggered by a fraud and investment scandal tied to Thurrock Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rockfire is being investigated by UK fraud authorities for selling risky solar farm bonds to the local authority that went bankrupt in 2022.<\/p>\n

The liquidators of Rockfire Capital and Rockfire Investment Finance are each looking to recover \u00a370m and \u00a3179m plus interest from RBS.<\/p>\n

Rockfire landed over \u00a3398m of public money from the council into its bonds that were intended to finance a network of solar farms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But instead of using the funds on energy infrastructure, the High Court<\/a> case, which was first reported by the Financial Times, alleges RBS processed unauthorised payments that benefited businessman Liam Kavanagh personally, who controlled the investment firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Businessman allegedly used firm\u2019s cash for outlandish purchases<\/p>\n

Kavanagh \u2013 who is alleged to not have authority to approve the payments \u2013 is said to have used the cash from the payments to buy luxury cars, a yacht and an aircraft as opposed to aiding the company.<\/p>\n

A liquidators report from April for Rockfire Investment Finance claims around \u00a3400m went into bank accounts. But it added \u201cmaterial amounts\u201d were also paid to third parties in the UK and overseas between 2017 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Rockfire Investment Finance claims that RBS authorised the payments whilst the company was \u201cbordering on insolvency or insolvent\u201d and states it was the bank\u2019s responsibility to block payments that were potentially fraudulent.<\/p>\n

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating Thurrock Council<\/a> following its bankruptcy that came with a \u00a31.5bn mountain of debt. Rockfire is compelled by SFO to provide evidence.<\/p>\n

Natwest has said it intends to defend itself in both cases. Kavanagh \u201cstrenuously denies\u201d the allegations made by Thurrock Council and aims to contest them in court. <\/p>\n

A sttaement from Kavanagh said: \u201cMr Kavanagh is not a party to the proceedings brought by\u00a0Rockfire Investment Finance or other companies against RBS\/Natwest, he has not been served with any of the relevant Court documents and is therefore not in a position to comment on the litigation and what has been alleged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n

\t\t\tRachel Reeves reforms ring-fencing in boost to Natwest and Lloyds<\/a><\/p>\n

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\t\t\tPeople & Organisations\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday 01 July 2026 9:50 am \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0 Wednesday 01 July 2026 3:38 pm Natwest has been caught in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21386],"tags":[2477,21339,714,665,633,1544,9176,2823,371,1476,1475,4464,7955,22625,18,33743,33744],"class_list":["post-74270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-natwest","tag-bank","tag-bank-accounts","tag-banking","tag-banks","tag-business","tag-council","tag-council-funding","tag-economics","tag-investment","tag-lawsuit","tag-legal","tag-local-councils","tag-natwest","tag-natwest-share-price","tag-news","tag-serious-fraud-office","tag-serious-fraud-office-sfo"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116845428496379159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}