Pair hired to clean up Irish banks named in HSBC scandal

The Government faces huge embarrassment today after two key figures appointed to help clean up the Irish financial system were named in an explosive US investigation into global banking giant HSBC.

Chairman of state-owned AIB David Hodgkinson, and Michael Noonan's top NAMA adviser Michael Geoghegan, are both named in a 330-page report that follows an investigation into HSBC by a US Senate subcommittee set up in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York.

HSBC is accused of "playing fast and loose with US banking rules" between 2004 and 2010 by US Senator Carl Levin, a key ally of US President Barack Obama, who chaired the team that published the report. Top NAMA adviser Michael Geoghegan was HSBC's most senior executive for almost the entire period now under investigation.

Source and full story: Irish Independent, 18 July 2012