Bank Ordered To Pay £748 Trillion In Compensation

The Scotsman: Bank's £748,000,000,000,000 order

It was the kind of cash demand that would have had senior bank executives spluttering in to their morning coffee.

The court order clearly stated that Barclays was being asked to stump up a colossal £748 trillion in compensation to the former owner of a Spanish bank it acquired 25 years ago.

The amount is the equivalent of 1,400 times Spain’s gross domestic product, or the wealth Spaniards could generate in 1,000 years.

Last night Spanish court officials said an investigation was under way to discover whether a monumental clerical error was to blame, as suspected, for the number of noughts in the compensation figure.