Media banned from calling Fred Goodwin a banker

Sir Fred Goodwin, the former CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland, has obtained a super-injunction banning the media from describing him as a banker.

John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, said in the House of Commons: "In a secret hearing, Fred Goodwin has obtained a super-injunction preventing him being identified as a banker."
According to the Press Association he asked, "Will the Government have a debate or a statement on the issue of freedom of speech and whether there is one law for the rich, such as Fred Goodwin, and another law for the poor?"
Super-injunctions are so strict that newspapers are banned from revealing their existence – let alone the information they are aimed at suppressing. However, Hemming’s statements are protected by parliamentary privilege.
Goodwin, nicknamed “Fred the Shred’ because of his willingness to sack thousands of staff, left RBS in 2008 in disgrace after the bank had to be bailed out by the government in the wake of the financial crisis. His 700,000 a year pension and 3m lump sum earned him the enmity of the British public – and his home was vandalised.
The Leader of the House, Sir George Young, told Hemming he would raise the issue with the appropriate minister.
However, this is far from a new issue – and not the first time the existence of a super-injunction has been revealed by an MP in the Commons. Back in October 2009, Labour MP Paul Farrelly asked a question that revealed Trafigura had obtained an injunction preventing publication of details regarding its dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.
Trafigura's lawyers obtained a further injunction banning the Guardian from reporting on Farrelly’s question – a legal intervention too far for many people, who decried it as an attack on the primacy of Parliament.
The injunction was quickly dropped after users of Twitter started posting links to websites containing all the information that people needed to work the story out for themselves. However, super-injunctions are clearly still a favourite weapon of rich people with something to hide. ·