HSBC boss set to face grilling by UK MPs over tax scandal
Updated : 13:12
The head honcho of HSBC is set be grilled by Ministers of Parliament on Wednesday over the bank’s controversial Swiss operations and his own personal financial affairs, according to press reports.
Chief executive Stuart Gulliver has been summoned at the 11th hour by the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee alongside Douglas Flint, the bank's chairman on Wednesday afternoon following revelations about HSBC’s Swiss operations and his personal financial affairs.
The Treasury select committee called the hearing after the press published leaked details of 100,000 bank accounts held by HSBC’s Swiss operation that showed how the bank helped clients avoid tax and move capital out of the UK.
Embarrassingly, it also emerged that Gulliver had an account at the Swiss bank, via a Panamanian company, around a decade ago, before he was put in charge of the HSBC in 2011. The revelations follow HSBC’s earnings report released earlier this week which were tarred with poor earnings, tax scandal and alleged manipulation of precious metal prices.
On Monday while presenting HSBC’s results, Gulliver said he was humbled and shamed by the tax revelations, however, he defended himself, saying the arrangement was totally legitimate, and was set up to ensure his colleagues could not see how much he was being paid.
“Being in Switzerland protects me from the Hong Kong staff. Being in Panama protects me from the Swiss staff,” he said. “There is nothing more complicated than that.” He also explained why he was non-domiciled in the UK despite being born in the country. “I would expect to die abroad, which is the test around domiciliary.”
Gulliver has also apologised in writing in adverts in some newspapers over the Swiss revelations in a bid to detract more negative attention to him and the bank. That said, HSBC’s top shareholders are said to be standing by him, encouraged by the work he has done in recent years to clean up the bank by selling off 77 businesses and implementing a reorganisation of the business.