ANDREW FASTOW, the former chief financial officer of Enron, sought yesterday to implicate four banks, including Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, by claiming that they had devised structures that helped him to hide losses. His comments came as he was sentenced to six years in prison.

His claims form the most detailed accusation yet against the four — which also include Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse — of their involvement in the collapse of Enron, the energy giant that went bankrupt in 2001.

The accusations could be seized on by shareholders seeking to recover $30 billion of losses.

Fastow, 44, whose sentence for his part in the Enron scandal was lighter than expected, had faced up to ten years in prison for setting up the complex financial structures used to hide billions of dollars in losses.

He claimed yesterday that the four banks — which have always denied any wrongdoing and which were not part of any other Enron-related settlements — were heavily involved in the scheme themeselves.

A spokesman for Sullivan Cromwell, Barclays’ law firm, said: “Given the source, the Fastow declaration and circumstances of its filing makes its credibility highly suspect.”

A spokeswoman for Royal Bank of Scotland said: “RBS believes it has substantial and credible legal and factual defenses to the claims against it following the collapse of Enron and continues to defend them vigorously.”

Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Fastow, who had previously refused to testify in share- holder cases for fear of incriminating himself, said in a parting shot: “In many instances the financial transactions in which I engaged related to Enron were done with the knowledge of some of Enron’s banks . . . We told certain banks of our financial objectives and they, in many instances, created solutions utilising complex financial structures . . .

“In many instances the banks primarily devised the financial structures, which contributed to Enron achieving its financial reporting objectives.”

The ten-year maximum penalty that Fastow faced had been reduced after he agreed a plea bargain in January 2004 for acting as a key witness in the cases of Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, who were the chief executive and chairman of Enron, respectively.

Lawyers for Enron shareholders have filed multiple lawsuits against the company’s banks and collected $8 billion in settlements from banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America.

However, a group of banks, including Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch, has refused to settle and deny any wrongdoing in the case. Fastow’s lawyers put in a request for leniency, saying that their client was a changed man and had been unfairly blamed by other Enron insiders. Fastow followed up yesterday by seeming to implicate some of the banks with which he had worked.

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