British PM attacks 'indefensible' banking practices

LONDON, England Britain's prime minister Gordon Brown repeated his call Saturday for former bank chiefs to give up massive pension packages and demanded a clean-up of the banking system to eradicate "Indefensible" practices.In a speech to the ruling Labour Party's National Policy Forum in Bristol, south-west England, Britain's Press Association quoted him as saying: "Some of the practices now being discovered in our banks are not only unacceptable, they are indefensible and they have got to be cleaned up now. "Many of the bank executives who got banks into this mess have now left their jobs; the boards of failed banks have gone; the four most senior executives of HBOS and RBS have all now left their jobs; seven non-executive directors of RBS lost their jobs; the HBOS board has ceased to exist. "And we are exploring all the legal action necessary to recover pension payments from people who received too much." Brown's comments follow the news last week that embattled former RBS boss Fred Goodwin had rejected calls for him to give up some of his estimated £650,000-a-year ($933,000) pension package.