Bradford & Bingley shareholders step up battle for compensation over its nationalisation

Investors hit by the nationalisation of one of Britain’s biggest mortgage lenders are set to step up their fight for compensation next month.

The Bradford & Bingley Shareholder Action Group will appeal against a ruling made by the Information Commissioner’s Office preventing it from accessing official documents linked to the company’s collapse at the height of the credit crunch in 2008.

Bradford & Bingley, which was highly exposed to the troubled buy-to-let mortgage market, ran into difficulties when funding from the wholesale money markets dried up.

Since then, the BBAG has been fighting for “fair treatment” on behalf of almost a million shareholders, many of whom received shares as part of the bank’s demutualisation in 2000.

The group will appear before the Information Rights Tribunal on 16-17 April.

B&B’s toxic mortgage debt was merged with the so-called bad bank of Northern Rock, which was nationalised in 2007.