About
The collapse in January 2018 of the construction giant Carillion, outsourcer of huge Government building contracts, is one of the great financial scandals of modern times. When it folded it had only £29 million in the bank and debts and other liabilities adding up to a staggering £7 billion. When the total losses were counted it was established that the banks were owed £1.3 billion in loans and that there was a hole in the pension fund of £2.6 billion.
That left British taxpayers picking up the tab to salvage the pensions owed to Carillion workers.
On one level, this is a familiar story of directors who systematically looted a company with the aim of their own enrichment. But in a wider context the Carillion catastrophe exposes everything that is wrong about the state we are in now—the free-for-all of company laws which govern directors' dealings, the toothless regulators, the crime and very little punishment of the Big Four auditors, and a government which is a prisoner of a broken model born of a political ideology which it cannot forsake. Through the story of Carillion, Bob Wylie exposes the lawlessness of contemporary capitalism that is facilitated by hapless politicians, and gives a warning for the future that must be heeded. Bandit Capitalism charts, in jaw-dropping detail, the rise and rise of the British Oligarchy.
That left British taxpayers picking up the tab to salvage the pensions owed to Carillion workers.
On one level, this is a familiar story of directors who systematically looted a company with the aim of their own enrichment. But in a wider context the Carillion catastrophe exposes everything that is wrong about the state we are in now—the free-for-all of company laws which govern directors' dealings, the toothless regulators, the crime and very little punishment of the Big Four auditors, and a government which is a prisoner of a broken model born of a political ideology which it cannot forsake. Through the story of Carillion, Bob Wylie exposes the lawlessness of contemporary capitalism that is facilitated by hapless politicians, and gives a warning for the future that must be heeded. Bandit Capitalism charts, in jaw-dropping detail, the rise and rise of the British Oligarchy.
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Reviews
"'An excoriating book on the corruption that can lurk within contemporary capitalism. Wylie focuses on the case of now-bankrupt Carillion, which was a giant provider of outsourced services to the UK government. This company was looted by management, at the expense of taxpayers and workers. But, he stresses, Carillion is merely an extreme example of corporate malfeasance. When management is expecte
Financial Times 'Best books of 2020'
"'Bob Wylie takes no prisons in his account of the scandal over the collapse of outsourcing company Carillion. It makes for a ripping read'"
Sceptical.scot