Recommendation 16

We were concerned that Greensill had approached various parts of government looking for financial support, with different decision-makers arriving at conclusions in isolation and without engaging with officials in other departments. For example, the Bank told us that it was not in touch with UKEF during its accreditation of Greensill, but that it had “looked at … and questioned” the same media reports that UKEF had identified during its due diligence.45 The Bank told us the fact that it and UKEF reached different conclusions from the same media reports reflected the different eligibility criteria of the two schemes.46 The Treasury explained that because each of the business support schemes that Greensill applied to were designed with “different objectives in mind and with different rules” and eligibility criteria, it was not surprised that different conclusions were reached.47