Abstract
The collapse of Greensill Capital, a company whose self-styled owner experimented with innovative supply-chain finance, led to parliamentary inquiries in the UK during the course of 2021. This paper tells the story of the collapse and analyses the justifications mobilised by the company’s owner, Lex Greensill, in defence of his acts. His exculpatory narratives contain classical components that characterise white-collar and financial crime, but also some innovative aspects that may prefigure the future development of these types of crimes.
Highlights
Lex Greensill founded his company in 2011 with seed finance from friends and close family
The collapse of Greensill Capital led to a parliamentary inquiry that displayed old and new ways in which the imperative to justify conduct in the economic sphere manifests itself
The justificatory narratives offered by its owner were not synonymous with deceit or insincere alibis but examples of selfauthorisation to act and self-approval for the effects achieved (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006). His answers to the enquiring panel were structured as an ideology, in the sense that they referred to a set of ‘a priori plausible ideas and discourses describing how society should be structured’ (Piketty 2020: 5)
Summary
Lex Greensill founded his company in 2011 with seed finance from friends and close family. Fascinated by his new employer, he felt Greensill had taken on the world, radically reshaping the sphere of finance, democratising access to capital and, making low-cost funding available to small businesses. The insurance was withdrawn because: a) the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted on the entire insurance industry; b) our business became too much concentrated on large customers [difficult to protect]; 3) our regulators in Germany [where Greensill owned a bank] felt there was uncertainty with respect to our ability to provide liquidity to our larger customers.
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