By Alyson Fixter
Insurance Times has refused to name a journalist’s source after the
Royal Bank of Scotland launched a molehunt over leaked financial
details that appeared in the magazine.
The Newsquest title printed confidential information about the
bank’s insurance division in its July edition, in a piece by senior
reporter Jonathan Russell.
The bank’s lawyers demanded that
Insurance Times reveal its source, never use the information again and
pay damages for breach of confidence.
But after a day-long
mediation that finished at midnight last Wednesday, the two parties
reached a private outof- court agreement.
Neither party would
comment on the details of the mediation, but Andy Cook, editor of
Insurance Times , said: “The parties have settled their dispute on
amicable terms and those terms are confidential.
However, if you asked me the question, ‘did we disclose our source?’ I would say to you that no, we did not.”
The disagreement hinged on an article entitled “RBSI Target Concerns” published in the 22 July edition of the magazine.
It
contained information about income, budgets and staffing at several RBS
insurance companies, which bosses at RBS believed could only have come
from a source within the group.
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