Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The Eastern Bank Limited was founded in London as a limited company at the end of 1909 as a new Eastern 'exchange' bank, to help finance trade with the East. As well as the Head Office in London, which exercised close day-to-day control, it had two overseas branches. established in 1910 in Bombay and Calcutta. From the start the Bank had a number of powerful institutional shareholders, including the Eastern trading house, E D Sassoon.
In the mid 1950s the Calcutta branch of the bank made several loans to the Mundhra group of companies, owned by Haridas Mundhra. The group included the Brahmapootra Tea Company (India) Limited; Osler Electric Lamp Manufacturing Company Limited; F&C Osler (India) Limited; Richardson & Cruddas Limited; and the British India Corporation.
Haridas Mundhra borrowed in excess of a quarter of a million pounds from Eastern Bank, and subsequently underwent civil and criminal prosecution in India. The manager of the Calcutta branch resigned, and was prosecuted in India for falsifying stautory banking returns. The total loss to Eastern Bank was around £750, 000.