NatWest 3 Each Sentenced To 37 Months In Prison

David Bermingham, Giles Darby and Gary Mulgrew, three British investment bankers known as the NatWest 3, were each sentenced to 37 months in prison on Friday by US District Judge Ewing Werlein in Houston. In accordance with their plea agreements, they will also have to pay $7.3 million restitution to Royal Bank of Scotland, parent of their former employer Greenwich NatWest. The plea agreements also allow the men to be eligible for transfer to
the UK in several months, and under the UK system they will be eligible
for parole after serving half of their sentences.

The three men were charged with seven counts of wire fraud in a 2002 indictment in connection with a scheme devised by former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow and his right-hand man Michael Kopper, Enron’s former global finance manager. In a complex series of transactions, Enron paid $20 million for Greenwich NatWest’s interest in a Fastow-controlled partnership, but Greenwich NatWest only received $1 million, while Fastow and Kopper siphoned off the difference and paid $7.3 million to Bermingham, Darby and Mulgrew. However, although the three men agreed to repay the money, they actually only pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and that was not the count involving the $7.3 million wire transfer. Tom Kirkendall at Houston’s Clear Thinkers had an excellent analysis of the plea deal here. Kristen Hays has the Houston Chronicle’s story on the sentencing here.