Fred Goodwin gets super-injunction that even stops him being called a banker

By Mark Pack | Thu 10th March 2011 - 11:16 pm

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Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland who became a focal point for anger over the financial crisis, has obtained a super-injunction banning the media from identifying him as a banker.

The existence of the super-injunction was revealed today by John Hemming, a back-bench Liberal Democrat MP who tabled a question in Parliament about the gagging order.

Normally the media is forbidden from even reporting that a super-injunction exists but Parliamentary privilege allows MPs to speak on the floor of the House of Commons without risk of prosecution.

Read more by Mark Pack or more about fred goodwin or john hemming.
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9 Comments

Dennis C 11th Mar '11 - 1:17am

How sad for those of you living in the UK. You lack the basic tenets of freedom of speech and press. Can we get the name of the judge who gave this super injunction ? I guess his or her identity is secret too. What irony, I bet the citizens of Egypt now have greater freedoms of expression than citizsens of the UK, LOL.
Chris Jenkinson 11th Mar '11 - 2:07am

Someone call Max Clifford. This man needs some PR advice!
perplex 11th Mar '11 - 8:12am

And somewhat inevitably, #fredgoodwinisabanker is now trending on Twitter!
Steve Way 11th Mar '11 - 11:10am

At first I thought it was typo, I know many people have used a word similar to banker to describe Mr Goodwin….
Nick (not Clegg) 11th Mar '11 - 11:22am

So we can no longer refer to Sir Fred Goodwin as a “banker”. OK, so what can we call him? Suggestions on a postcard …
Sean 11th Mar '11 - 11:27am

….a complete banker?
The Infamous Culex 11th Mar '11 - 12:04pm

Need I remind people that the collective noun for a group of bankers is a wunch?
toryboysnevergrowup 11th Mar '11 - 12:31pm

The lawyers who push these superinjunctions are really not advising their clients very well. Look what happened with Trafigura and now this is all over the internet and probably result in more damage that would otherwise have been the case.

As to an appropriate description for “bankers” such as Goodwin (rather than good old fashioned bankers who used to take a turn between borrowing and lending rates and performed a valuable role in matching savers and borrowers) would be dealers or casino operators or similar.
Hywel 11th Mar '11 - 2:51pm

I wonder what the injunction actually said and if it really says you can’t describe him as a banker or someone is just taking a mischeiviously over restrictive interpretiation to point up the ridiculousness of some super-injunctions.

That was really what happened with Trafigura as really the Guardian very cleverly promoted an overly restrictive view on what they could say rather than going back to the court to clarify the point.