Fred Goodwin's Alleged Secret Lover Had Nothing To Do With RBS's Near-Burning To The Ground

To those who think the woman- an RBS staffer who was promoted twice while she was (maybe) having an affair with Goodwin- "impaired" his "decision-making capacity," which ultimately resulted in the bank having 82% of its ass owned by the government, think again! An internal investigation has concluded that 1) the woman was no more of a distraction than a hobby 2) he didn't empower her to make any "big" decisions and 3) Goodwin was fully capable of running RBS into the ground without anyone else's help, thankyouverymuch.

The Royal Bank of Scotland employee at the centre of an alleged affair with Sir Fred Goodwin, its former chief executive, played no part in important strategic decisions at the bank, according to an internal investigation. People familiar with the probe said it focused on whether the employee, who remains at the bank, was involved in any key decision-making work, such as the bank’s acquisition of ABN Amro, judging credit risk, assessing regulatory issues or conducting internal audits. “We have only known about this for several weeks, and as soon as we did know we conducted an investigation,” said one person familiar with the process. “We are satisfied the employee in question did not compromise the bank in any way.”

[A] person with knowledge of the internal investigation said it was “slightly ludicrous” to suggest that Sir Fred’s decision-making capacity had been impaired by an extramarital affair. “There is no suggestion that he spent day after day locked away in a secret bolt-hole,” he said. “He went on holidays, he had hobbies. This was comparable.”