Greensill Lobbying Scandal: The Questions At The Heart Of MPs’ Financial Question | Economic news

There were two questions at the heart of the Treasury Select Committee’s questioning of Australian financier Lex Greensill.

The first was whether his company’s business model was really a viable entity or whether it was, as previously described, a “Ponzi scheme”.

The other was the amount of taxpayer dollars at risk.

These two questions have been raised in many ways by MPs of all stripes, but not much clarity from Mr Greensill – not least because he said lawyers advised him not to answer specific questions on customers.

This may have been linked to the news that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has opened an investigation to see if there was any criminal activity involved in the business collapse.

Mr. Greensill says Greensill Capital collapsed because he fell victim to the pandemic, which increased risks and costs for everyone, and although he made mistakes along the way, his business was viable.

He claims that there will be no loss for the taxpayer.

The deputies did not seem convinced. Angela Eagle, of Labor, pointed out that Greensill had paid bills with companies that said they did not work with the company, which she said suggested fraud.

He denies the fraud, saying the group used current and historical trading data to predict what might happen in the future.

Conservative Felicity Buchan questioned whether Greensill was in fact engaged in unsecured loans “disguised” as supply chain finance.

He also denied the accusation, saying everything had been correctly reported to regulators.

Rushanara Ali suggested the business was a Ponzi scheme that “smacks” of the kind of fraud Bernie Madoff offered.

She also suggested that, far from failing in their lobbying efforts, Mr. Greensill and David Cameron “got what [they] wanted “last year – albeit from another arm of government, the …