Lex Greensill banned as company director for nine years after multi-billion-pound collapse

The UK Insolvency Service has confirmed that financier Lex Greensill will face a nine-year ban from serving as a company director, after he signed a legally binding disqualification undertaking to resolve long-running enforcement proceedings just days before a scheduled High Court trial.

The Insolvency Service, which opened its probe into him in 20222, filed a director disqualification claim against the founder of Greensill Capital, Lex Greensill, in March 2024.

The regulator was looking into the multi-billion-pound collapse of the Greensill Group, which focused on providing supply chain financing and related financial services in the UK and Australia, in March 2021, that left liabilities of over £1.6bn.

The collapse even saw former Prime Minister David Cameron, who was a senior adviser to Greensill, dragged into the scandal.

Facing disqualification proceedings from the Insolvency Service, he sought legal action to prevent the proceedings.

Additionally, he also filed legal action against the UK government in 2024 over alleged “misuse of private information”, which will continue to play out.

Earlier this year, his barrister Ian Winter KC, said in written submissions to the court that the claim should be thrown out as there “cannot be a fair trial”, stating that the case against the financier was “unfair and an abuse of process”. But the court refused his application to strike out the disqualification proceedings.

On Thursday, the Insolvency Service revealed Greensill will be banned as a company director in the UK for nine years after agreeing to be disqualified.

Greensill signs the 9-year disqualification undertaking

The primary findings against him are that he allowed Greensill Capital (UK) Limited to divert $440m received in November 2020 for alternative purposes rather than using it to redeem the notes owed to Credit Suisse. These actions caused the underlying financial notes to default upon maturity, directly resulting in a loss for the Credit Suisse fund.

His actions, according to the UK Insolvency Service, directly breached the Companies Act 2006 by failing to meet his statutory requirement to exercise reasonable care, skill, and diligence as a corporate director.

By signing the disqualification undertaking on Tuesday, Greensill has accepted the ban and chosen not to dispute certain facts regarding his conduct for the purposes of these proceedings, ending the six-week trial that was scheduled to begin on Monday, 8 June.

According to Duncan Beach, chief executive of the Insolvency Service, the nine-year period is significantly above the average duration of director disqualifications, reflecting the severity of the corporate governance and fiduciary failures.

A spokesman for Lex Greensill said: “After four years of investigation, this matter has concluded with no finding that Mr Greensill acted dishonestly or in bad faith.”

“Separately, Mr Greensill’s proceedings against the Department for Business and Trade, over the unlawful disclosure of his private information during the Insolvency Service’s investigation, continue. The Department has admitted that the disclosure was unlawful and has accepted liability for it.”