--- title: "How exposed was Greensill to GFG Alliance, and what is still owed?" language: en canonical: https://dossiertwist.com/dossiers/greensill-capital-uk-limited/gfg-alliance/ as_of: 2026-10-22 keywords: ["Greensill Capital (UK) Limited","Greensill Capital Pty Limited","Lex Greensill","Greensill Bank AG","supply chain finance","Credit Suisse supply chain finance funds","SoftBank Vision Fund","Katerra","Fairymead notes","GFG Alliance","Sanjeev Gupta","trade credit insurance","BCC Trade Credit","Insurance Australia Limited","CLBILS","British Business Bank","administration","Grant Thornton","director disqualification","Treasury Committee"] --- # How exposed was Greensill to GFG Alliance, and what is still owed? **Question.** How exposed was Greensill Capital (UK) Limited to Sanjeev Gupta's GFG Alliance, what does GFG still owe it, and which proceedings and investigations concern the relationship? **Answer.** GFG Alliance, the group of businesses of Sanjeev Gupta and the Gupta family that includes Liberty Steel, was identified by the House of Commons Treasury Committee as a particular concentration of risk for Greensill, and in December 2020 BaFin required the Greensill group to accelerate the reduction of its GFG exposure. In their report to 7 September 2026 the administrators of Greensill Capital (UK) Limited (GCUK) put the amount outstanding from GFG at about $587.2 million, with no recoveries in the period, and the validity of GCUK's security over Liberty companies is before an Australian court, with a hearing set for November 2026. The Serious Fraud Office opened an investigation into GFG companies in May 2021, and an insurer has alleged a fraudulent scheme involving Greensill and Liberty businesses in court filings described by a press report; no charge or ruling on either is in the record, a press report says GFG has consistently denied wrongdoing, and a spokesperson for Lex Greensill rejected the insurer's allegations. ## GFG Alliance and the concentration of risk - Analysis: GFG Alliance (the Gupta Family Group Alliance) is, as the House of Commons Treasury Committee described it in July 2021, a collection of global businesses and investments owned by Sanjeev Gupta and the Gupta family that includes the LIBERTY Steel Group; the joint administrators of Greensill Capital (UK) Limited (GCUK) define the 'GFG Group' as the entities of the Gupta Family Group under the control of Sanjeev Gupta. The Committee identified the relationship with GFG Alliance as one particular concentration of risk for Greensill, meaning a large share of its business depending on one client group. David Cameron, an adviser to Greensill, told the Committee that throughout David Cameron's time at Greensill the concentration of loans to GFG was an issue for the business, regularly discussed at board meetings from before 2020, and that it was understood to be actively managed with plans to reduce it over time; the Committee also recorded that David Cameron described the relationship between Greensill and GFG Alliance as 'symbiotic'. That is David Cameron's evidence, in a written response to the Committee dated 18 June 2021 and orally, as quoted in the Committee's report of July 2021; the Committee made no finding on how the concentration was managed. [src-015] [src-031] - Analysis: Questions about the relationship had been raised in public in 2019. The Treasury Committee recorded, among reputational issues raised in press reporting before the period of Greensill's lobbying covered by its report, a press report (March 2019) on concerns about links between Lex Greensill, Sanjeev Gupta and Tim Haywood of GAM, one of whose funds provided finance to Greensill, and a parliamentary question tabled by Lord Myners in June 2019 asking whether the Government was investigating the management, investment valuations and manager–investee relationships of the GAM Greensill Supply Chain Finance Fund. These were press concerns and a parliamentary question, not findings, and no answer to the question appears in the record. An article published on 7 July 2019 by Reuters News & Media Limited and reproduced in the High Court judgment [2020] EWHC 1325 (QB), on a libel claim, a claim for defamation in published form, that GCUK and Lex Greensill brought against Reuters over the article, reported that a May 2018 update by Greensill to bond investors and brokers stated that the Scottish Government had approved a guarantee relating to the Kinlochleven hydro plant owned by GFG Alliance, against which bonds issued in 2017 on behalf of Sanjeev Gupta were secured, whereas the Scottish Government said no approval had been given. The meaning Reuters contended for in the libel claim added that an April 2017 pre-sale document produced by GCUK for GAM Holding AG, which bought £220 million of the bonds, stated that such a guarantee would allow GFG to repurchase the bonds early; the article also said that Greensill had helped GFG raise billions of dollars through bond sales, including the 2017 Kinlochleven sale. In the article Greensill said the May 2018 update 'was based upon information provided by GFG' and that it never knowingly issues false statements, GFG said it 'did not mislead anyone' and had never told any party that such guarantees had been put in place, and GAM said it did not feel misled by Greensill. The article also reported that the Kinlochleven bonds were sold in early 2019, GFG saying it had purchased and refinanced them early that year. The judgment of 14 May 2020 decided only what the article meant, not whether its allegations were true, and according to the National Audit Office's chronology Greensill dropped the libel claim on 27 May 2020. [src-031] [src-098] [src-077] ## BaFin's limits and the search for refinancing - Analysis: On about 8 December 2020 BaFin, the German financial regulator, required the Greensill group to accelerate the reduction of its exposure to GFG Alliance. Minutes of the board of Greensill Capital Pty Limited (GCPL) of 31 December 2020, quoted in [2025] EWHC 2631 (Ch), record that BaFin required that only $25 of every $100 of GFG receivables due to be rolled over, that is, refinanced on maturity, be rolled over (a 75% reduction), a requirement the group considered not sustainable, and internal SoftBank Investment Advisers documents recorded that Greensill Bank AG had to reduce its GFG exposure from about $2 billion (stated in a 27 December 2020 update as $2.05 billion) to $600 million by 31 December 2020. On 5 January 2021 BaFin also blocked withdrawals by the Greensill group from Greensill Bank AG, which affected $250 million deposited with the bank in November 2020. Minutes of the GCPL board meeting of 7 January 2021, also quoted in the judgment, record Lex Greensill reporting that a seller concentration reduction plan had been agreed with BaFin, including a further reduction of the exposure to nil by 31 December 2021; the Treasury Committee reported in July 2021 Lex Greensill's evidence that BaFin's December 2020 plan 'was going to be impossible for Greensill to comply with' and that BaFin later agreed to an alternative proposal from Greensill. GCUK's joint administrators reported in their proposals, covering 8 March to 16 April 2021, that from the end of 2020 GCUK and GCPL sought further debt or equity to reduce the group's exposure to GFG and meet insurance collateral requirements, by mandating investment banks for an equity raise, seeking bridge financing from existing shareholders and engaging an investment bank to arrange a structured finance facility through a special purpose securitisation vehicle issuing notes backed by insured receivables from the GFG supply chain finance programmes (supply chain finance being funding in which a financier pays a company's suppliers early and collects from the company later), but that none of these solutions could be implemented. [src-035] [src-031] [src-029] ## What GFG owes GCUK - Analysis: The administrators have given differing figures for GFG's debt to GCUK. Their proposals give two figures for the GFG exposure on GCUK's balance sheet at the start of the administration: in the section on trade assets, about $355 million owed by GFG company obligors out of trade assets of about $490 million, the rest, about $135 million, being owed by other obligors; and in the section on the administrators' independence, about $230 million of GFG-related receivables held on GCUK's own balance sheet, besides notes secured on GFG companies' obligations that GCUK had sold to investors, principally five. Both figures appear in the same report without reconciliation, and the report does not say whether they are measured on different bases. In their progress report for the six months to 7 September 2026 the administrators gave a third, higher figure: about $587.2 million (at March 2021 exchange rates) outstanding from GFG, across 33 separate balance sheet items, with no recoveries in the period. They said that significant time had passed in numerous unsuccessful negotiations and non-binding term sheets on GFG settlement offers, and that they continued to explore recovery under the security and guarantees granted by GFG in connection with the GFG programmes. In the other direction, GCUK's statement of affairs as at 8 March 2021, the statement of its assets and liabilities at the start of the administration, with a creditor schedule dated 28 April 2021, lists 'GFG', with a Singapore address, among GCUK's creditors with 12,105,337.92, in a filing whose form gives amounts in US dollars while the schedule's amount column is marked in pounds sterling. The schedule does not say which GFG entity is meant or what the debt is for, and GFG companies owed GCUK much larger amounts. [src-029] [src-015] [src-007] - Analysis: In the section of their report on GFG, the administrators stated that legal and diligence work on previously proposed consensual settlements was supported by a funding indemnity, of which GCUK's proportional share came to about $7.2 million, with no further funding expected; the receipts and payments accounts annexed to their report for the period to 7 September 2026 carry, in the US dollar, Australian dollar and euro accounts, a line headed 'Costs being covered by GFG funding'. The narrative passage does not name who provided the funding indemnity, the link to GFG rests on those account headings, and the amounts on the scanned accounts cannot be read reliably. The administrators also reported that GFG entities continue to enter insolvency processes in various jurisdictions, that GCUK holds direct or indirect security interests (rights over assets that secure a debt) over these entities, and that between March and September 2026 six more entered local insolvency processes, including Liberty Pipes (Hartlepool) Limited and Liberty Capital (UK) Limited in England and Whyalla Ports Pty Ltd in Australia. [src-015] ## Proceedings over GCUK's security - Analysis: In September 2025 GCUK's administrators began proceedings in Australia, the 'IB Proceedings', to determine the validity of GCUK's security over Liberty Holdings Australia Ltd. The proceedings were later extended to its security over Liberty OneSteel (MDR) UK Limited and, between March and September 2026, to security that Liberty Holdings Australia had granted to Liberty Capital (UK) Limited and that was then transferred to Liberty Capital Investment Limited; the administrators state that the security granted to Liberty Capital (UK) Limited was granted in breach of GCUK's security, which is their position, not a court finding. The substantive hearing, due in early September 2026, was deferred on the application of Liberty Holdings Australia and Liberty OneSteel (MDR) and is to take place in November 2026; the validity of GCUK's security remains the subject of these pending proceedings. On 22 September 2025, immediately before the IB Proceedings began, GFG commenced a Part 7 claim, an ordinary claim under the Civil Procedure Rules, in the Commercial Court in England against GCUK, Greensill Bank AG and UBS. The administrators state that the English claim was brought in breach of GCUK's statutory moratorium, the bar on legal proceedings against a company in administration without the administrators' consent or the court's permission, which was not permitted to be lifted. After an interlocutory hearing on jurisdiction, judgment was given in favour of GCUK on 4 February 2026 that the dispute should be decided by the Australian courts, and the English proceedings are stayed until the outcome of the IB Proceedings; that judgment is known from the administrators' report and was not found in the record. According to the administrators' progress report for the period to 7 September 2026, the English claim remains stayed, and the administrators continue to engage with GFG to see whether a suitable settlement can be reached. [src-015] ## Investigations and allegations - Analysis: The Serious Fraud Office opened an investigation in May 2021 into suspected fraud, fraudulent trading and money laundering in relation to the financing and conduct of the business of companies within GFG Alliance, including its financing arrangements with GCUK; the Treasury Committee reported the investigation in July 2021 and said that it awaited its outcome. An investigation is not a finding of wrongdoing, no charge or outcome of it appears in the record, and a press report (February 2024) stated that GFG has consistently denied any wrongdoing. GFG also featured in the early scope of the Insolvency Service's investigation of the Greensill companies: on 4 May 2022 the Insolvency Service told Lex Greensill's solicitors that its investigation of GCUK, Greensill Capital Management Company (UK) Limited and Greensill Limited, then in a scoping phase, was likely to cover, among other matters, the controls in place to limit the risk of funding receivables based on invoices which may not have been accurate, particularly in relation to the Gupta Family Group of companies (GFG). That was a list of matters likely to be investigated, recorded in [2026] EWHC 639 (Ch), not a finding, and the allegations eventually made in the disqualification proceedings against Lex Greensill concerned Katerra, Catfoss and insurance non-disclosure. In an affirmation for the Secretary of State in those proceedings, as summarised in that judgment, the Insolvency Service's chief investigator alleged that GCUK's inability to manage the 'GFG $7.5 billion exposure risk' was 'ultimately key to the failure and cessation of GCUK's business', and asserted that Lex Greensill kept the GFG relationship closely in Lex Greensill's own hands, with limited involvement at senior level by other directors and management of GCUK; the $7.5 billion figure is the Insolvency Service's and is not explained or tested in the judgment. In the application to strike out the proceedings it was argued for Lex Greensill that this evidence invited adverse inferences about a cause of the insolvencies although no misconduct by Lex Greensill in relation to GFG was alleged. The court recorded that it was no part of the Secretary of State's case that the alleged misconduct caused the insolvencies, the financial position being only context, and noted an instance in the evidence where Lex Greensill expressed agreement with the investigator's view that the inability to manage the GFG exposure risk was a cause of GCUK's failure; Lex Greensill had told the Treasury Committee in 2021 that the group's concentrations on insurance and clients were too high and were the principal contributing factor to the failure. Mr Justice Trower dismissed the strike-out application on 18 March 2026, and the allegations were not tried because the proceedings ended with a disqualification undertaking accepted on 2 June 2026. [src-031] [src-034] [src-110] [src-005] [src-008] - Analysis: Allegations about the Greensill–Liberty business have also been made in civil proceedings. A press report (February 2024) of court filings stated that Zurich Insurance Company, sued in the High Court by the administrators of Greensill Bank AG in a dispute over trade credit insurance, which covers sellers against buyers' failure to pay, alleged in a defence and counterclaim dated 26 January 2024 that the claims against it arose out of a 'fraudulent scheme' involving Lex Greensill, GCUK, Sanjeev Gupta and three Liberty businesses of GFG Alliance, including that receivables purportedly sold by Liberty to GCUK were not genuine, that a receivables purchase agreement was a 'sham' and that Zurich had not been told of a German investigation of Greensill Bank or of the true nature of the Greensill–Liberty business; the report put the dispute at $405 million. A spokesperson for Lex Greensill said that Lex Greensill 'wholly rejects' the allegations as without foundation and would address them in a defence and any counterclaims, and a GFG Alliance spokesperson said GFG 'was not involved in any insurance arrangements which Greensill had in place'. These are allegations in an insurer's statement of case as reported by the press, and no court ruling on them or outcome of the proceedings appears in the record. In a complaint filed in March 2021 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against Lex Greensill, GCUK and Roland Hartley-Urquhart, Bluestone Resources Inc. and related plaintiffs alleged that in January 2020 the defendants introduced them to GFG Alliance, which they understood from Greensill to be an important Greensill client, and strongly encouraged them to supply metallurgical coal to GFG; the complaint says that the first delivery, in June 2020, was given an extended payment period to December 2020, that GFG paid late, and that Roland Hartley-Urquhart at first vouched for GFG. Those allegations were not adjudicated: on 1 July 2022 the court dismissed the action by an order referring to a settlement agreement, and on 2 August 2022 the plaintiffs' voluntary dismissal of all claims against all defendants with prejudice, so that they cannot be brought again, was so ordered; no defendant had filed an answer, and the settlement terms were not found in the record. [src-110] [src-106] [src-105] - Analysis: The Federal Court of Australia's judgment of 28 April 2026 in White Oak Commercial Finance Europe (Non-Levered) Limited v Insurance Australia Limited (No 3) [2026] FCA 530 refers to proceedings in the United Kingdom brought by White Oak against Marsh Ltd over White Oak's investment in the Greensill Liberty Commodities Limited Receivable Purchase Agreement programme; the National Audit Office lists Liberty Commodities Limited among companies with connections to GFG Alliance. Marsh & McLennan Companies' quarterly report to the SEC for the period ended 30 September 2026 states that White Oak filed the claim against Marsh Ltd in the High Court in London in June 2023 and that Marsh Ltd reached a settlement with White Oak in May 2025 to resolve the matter in the United Kingdom; the High Court in [2026] EWHC 639 (Ch) describes the White Oak trial as having settled after the trial had concluded. [src-095] [src-077] [src-053] [src-005] ## Sources - [src-015] Administrators' progress report (form AM10) for Greensill Capital (UK) Limited and Greensill Capital Management Company (UK) Limited, period to 7 September 2026, Companies House, 2026-10-10 - [src-031] House of Commons Treasury Committee, Lessons from Greensill Capital, Sixth Report of Session 2021–22 (HC 151), House of Commons Treasury Committee, 2021-07-20 - [src-098] Judgment: Greensill Capital (UK) Limited and Alexander Greensill v Reuters News & Media Limited [2020] EWHC 1325 (QB), The National Archives (Find Case Law), 2020-05-14 - [src-077] National Audit Office, Investigation into the British Business Bank's accreditation of Greensill Capital (HC 301), National Audit Office, 2021-07-07 - [src-035] Judgment: Credit Suisse Virtuoso SICAV-SIF and GLAS Trust Corporation Limited v SoftBank Group Corp. and others [2025] EWHC 2631 (Ch), The National Archives (Find Case Law), 2025-10-15 - [src-029] Notice of administrators' proposals (form AM03) for Greensill Capital (UK) Limited and Greensill Capital Management Company (UK) Limited, Companies House, 2021-04 - [src-007] Notice of statement of affairs in administration (form AM02) of Greensill Capital (UK) Limited, as at 8 March 2021, Companies House, 2021-06-11 - [src-034] ASIC answer to question on notice QoN026-01 (Greensill), Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (published by the Parliament of Australia) - [src-110] Media source · src-110 - [src-005] Court record source · src-005 - [src-008] Insolvency Service news release: Lex Greensill to be disqualified from acting as a company director in the UK for nine years, The Insolvency Service (GOV.UK), 2026-06-04 - [src-106] Court record source · src-106 - [src-105] Court record source · src-105 - [src-095] Court record source · src-095 - [src-053] Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 September 2026, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), 2026