On March 31, 2016, the UK House of Commons Treasury Committee wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer informing him that it had commissioned a report into the Maxwellisation process. Maxwellisation allows those who are going to be criticized in a public report an opportunity to respond to such criticisms and comment on relevant texts prior to their publication. The Treasury Committee's view is that one of the reasons for the delay in the publication of the UK regulators report into the collapse of HBOS was that Maxwellisation was applied, which took some 14 months. The HBOS report was published in December 2015 - seven years after HBOS failed. The Treasury Committee has asked Andrew Green QC to prepare a report on the legal requirements for, the issues that arise in the application of, Maxwellisation and to make recommendations on how Maxwellisation can be applied in a fair and proportionate manner in future public financial enquiries. The report will focus on the financial services sector only.
The Treasury Committee's letter is available at: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/treasury/Correspondence/Letter-from-Treasury-Committee-Chair-to-Rt-Hon-George-Osborne-MP-Maxwellisation.pdf and the Terms of Reference of the Maxwellisation Review are available at: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/treasury/Correspondence/Terms-of-Reference-of-the-Maxwellisation-review.pdf.
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