Personal injury compensation company The Accident Group collapsed after HBOS pulled out of a joint venture agreement and refused to forward it a £4.5m payment, TAG's chairman and founder Mark Langford has said.
Langford told the Daily Telegraph that HBOS was drafted in as a last minute replacement for Morgan Stanley in entrepreneur Hugh Osmond's plan to create a new-look TAG.
However, HBOS withdrew from the deal five days after confirming its involvement and decided not to handover £4.5m of "outstanding monies due to the company" that would have "enabled us to meet staff salaries for May", Langford said.
HBOS has rejected the accusations. A spokesman told The Daily Telegraph: "We were made the most general of approaches but were never provided details of the plan."
He added that the funds were withheld because there "was no guarantee that they would be used for future claims".
