Cheque loophole must close: MEP

A BRITISH MEP is taking action at EU level to get France to close the banking loophole used by Graham Templeton to fleece his victims.

Sharon Bowles, the Liberal Democrat MEP for south-east England, was alerted to the problem after The Connexion found the loophole was still wide open last October.

Templeton’s victims made cheques payable to the Société Générale, thinking they were investing money in a high-interest investment fund underwritten by the bank.

Instead, the fraudster was able to pay these cheques into his personal account – even though his name figured nowhere on the cheques – simply by signing the back.

Connexion tested the procedure at a Société Générale branch in Nice, with a cheque for €5,000 made payable to the bank. Our journalist paid the cheque into his personal account, and it cleared without any questions being asked.

Ms Bowles, who chairs the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, wants to find out if any other EU countries allow the same practice and is urging the new European Union internal market commissioner Michel Barnier – a Frenchman – to get the loophole closed.

The Financial Services Authority in the UK banned the practice in 2006 over fraud concerns, but Ms Bowles said the group did not appear to have alerted its equivalents in other EU countries to the problem.

She will discuss the loophole issue with the rest of the committee in mid-February.

“This is just the kind of issue that MEPs are here to deal with. It is definitely something that we can pursue,” she told Connexion.

“I am not quite sure about a directive to fix it – but that does not mean there is not action that cannot be taken at a European level.

“The quickest way is pressure. I think the commissioner could just use his clout and say this should be changed. Michel Barnier only has to open his mouth and it will happen. What’s the problem with issuing some kind of diktat like this?”

Conservative MEP for the east of England Geoffrey Van Orden has also taken a strong interest in the Templeton case and is trying to help victims in their compensation fight with the Société Générale.

He has written to bank chief executive Frédéric Oudéa calling on it to pay up in full for letting the conman pay cheques made out to the bank into his own account.

Mr Van Orden said the protracted negotiations did not reflect well on the bank and the money was trivial to them but a matter of life and death for the victims.

The French Banking Federation still refused to discuss the loophole when approached by Connexion.

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Cheque loophole still wide open
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