Nine years. That's how long Lex Greensill has agreed to be banned from running a UK company.

The Insolvency Service announced it on 4 June. The ban takes effect on 23 June 2026 and runs to 2035.

Greensill Capital collapsed in 2021 owing more than £1.6 billion. The consequences have finally landed on the man whose name was on the door.

The basis of the ban is not fraud - it's a breach of the director's duty under section 174 of the Companies Act - to exercise reasonable care, skill and diligence. No dishonesty - just a failure to do the one thing the role demands.

Here's what the Insolvency Service found: In late 2020, Greensill caused three group companies to enter into transactions - with the US construction group Katerra - that stripped the legal protections out of a Credit Suisse fund's investment. Security released, trade-credit insurance cancelled and none of the written consents those protections required. Then $440 million that should have repaid the fund's notes went elsewhere. The notes defaulted and the fund lost $440 million.

Here's the part most coverage skipped: A six-week trial was due to start this week. It won't. Greensill signed a disqualification undertaking - agreeing not to dispute certain facts in exchange for the case ending. No judgment, no cross-examination. The outcome without the record a trial would have left behind.

Three takeaways for boards:

1. Expertise raises the bar - it never lowers it. The law judges a director against what they actually know. Greensill designed these structures, so "I didn't appreciate the risk" was never open to him. It cuts both ways: if you're the expert, more is expected of you. If someone else is, that's the reason to press harder, not to defer.

2. The dull sign-offs are the real controls. The protections that failed here weren't complex. They were the written consents - the second approvals that stop one person quietly releasing security or cancelling cover. The day a board or a deal team treats a required consent as a box to tick, the protection is already gone.

3. "We trust management" is not governance. Trust is not scrutiny. The test a regulator applies is simple: can you show how you satisfied yourself - not just that you did? Active scrutiny is asking where the $440 million went. Passive reliance is assuming someone else already checked. Only one of those is a defence.

The best boards are the ones where someone is allowed to ask the unwelcome question while the deal is still warm - and the room doesn't roll its eyes or look down at the table.

Nine years is a long time to lose. It usually starts with one transaction nobody wanted to challenge.

What's the one question you've learned to always ask before you approve something?

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The longest ban ever imposed against a director in New Zealand is 8.5 years.   

Jayne McGlynn is a London-based lawyer who specialises in corporate law, including mergers and acquisitions.