Paul Moore is a former manager at the bank HBOS, who came to public attention in late 2008 as a whistleblower after claiming that he had been fired for warning HBOS about its excessive risk-taking.
Educated at the Catholic boarding school Ampleforth College,[1] Moore trained as a barrister. He was involved in UK financial regulation since it began in 1986. Between 1995 and 2002 he was a partner in KPMG's Financial Sector Practice in London specialising in regulatory services where he advised a number of FTSE100 clients on regulatory matters.
Between 2002 and 2004, Moore was head of Group Regulatory Risk at HBOS. He had formal responsibility for the bank's policy and oversight of executive management's compliance with FSA regulation.
In November 2004 Moore was dismissed by HBOS. He claimed this was because he had told HBOS's board that the bank was taking excessive risks with its aggressive sales culture which was out of balance with its systems and controls. He passed his concerns about HBOS to the FSA, who had it investigated by KPMG, whose conclusion, that HBOS had appropriate risk controls in place, was accepted by the FSA.[2][3] He sued HBOS for unfair dismissal; the bank settled his claim for over half a million pounds in mid-2005.
Although Moore had agreed to a non-disclosure agreement as part of his settlement, he decided to speak out because he believed it to be in the public interest.
On 10 February 2009, Moore submitted a memorandum of evidence to the UK's Treasury Select Committee, which was investigating risks taken by UK banks prior to the credit crunch. Following the revelation that Moore had been fired by Sir James Crosby, formerly CEO at HBOS, Crosby resigned from his subsequent post of Deputy Director at the FSA.