Maxwell report expected to criticise City firms
The long-awaited official report into the collapse of Robert Maxwell's business empire is expected to be published today.
Leading London City institutions are in line for criticism, along with Maxwell's son Kevin and, it has been reported, Lord Donoughue, a former minister in Tony Blair's government.
Nine years after it was commissioned, the British Department of Trade and Industry report will finally provide an official chronicle of the complex inner workings of Maxwell's multimedia companies.
It will blame dozens of individuals and companies for their failings in connection with the tycoon's fraud-ridden empire, although the majority of fault will be laid at the door of Maxwell himself.
Former British junior agriculture minister Lord Donoughue, who used to be a director of one of Maxwell's key companies, is reported to have been criticised for failing to seek information on how money was being transferred to Maxwell's private companies.
Kevin Maxwell, 42, and several leading City advisers are also expected to have failings highlighted.
Kevin and his brother Ian were cleared of fraud at two trials in 1996.
The report was commissioned in 1992, seven months after Maxwell toppled to his death from his luxury yacht in the Atlantic.
His businesses toppled soon after, as administrators took over amid revelations that some £450m was missing from pension funds.
The DTI report is expected to criticise several City big names, including merchant bank Goldman Sachs, which was involved in the flotation of Mirror Group Newspapers in 1991.
