RBS to appeal £200k fine for lawyers’ failure to attend overdraft case

ROYAL Bank of Scotland is to appeal a £200,000 court fine that was inflicted on it after its lawyers failed to turn up to defend the case.

Restaurateur Nigel Matheson, 63, had sued the bank over a dispute on an overdraft extension.

When RBS and its lawyers failed to appear at the Court of Session in Edinburgh last month, Mr Matheson was granted the £200,000 that he asked for in damages.

Mr Matheson, who runs The Conservatory restaurant at Ballachallan, Cambusmore, Perthshire, has claimed that RBS damaged his business and caused him psychiatric injury when it with unilaterally withdrew a £5,000 extension to his company’s overdraft, granted in 2005.

McGrigors, the law firm acting for the bank, had previously admitted it failed to notice the case being called, while RBS had been told that the action was going to be lodged for calling and that it had called, but did nothing about it.

On the day of the case last month, the presiding judge Lord Glennie awarded Mr Matheson the £200,000 “by default” without hearing any details.

Having unsuccessfully asked Lord Glennie to set aside the decree, RBS confirmed yesterday that it was going to appeal the award, which it had previously described as a “massive and wholly unjustified windfall”.

An earlier action against the bank raised by Mr Matheson in Perth Sheriff Court in 2008 had been dismissed.