Bird & Bird is representing a group of former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shareholders who today (3 April) issued an estimated £4bn claim against the bank and a group of its former directors over a 2008 rights issue.

Bird & Bird partner Steven Baker is leading the team acting for the shareholders, having taken the work with him in a lateral move from Olswang last year. Baker has instructed Serle Court barrister Philip Marshall QC to pursue the claim in court.

Last year the RBoS Shareholders Action Group delivered a letter of claim to the bank, valuing the money lost by shareholders, including interest, at £2.4bn. Having secured adverse costs cover for the case in October 2012, the group is now proceeding with the claim, which it has re-valued at an estimated £3.5-£4bn.

Herbert Smith Freehills is representing the bank and the group of former directors, which includes former chief executive Fred Goodwin.

The shareholders started legal action after the Financial Services Authority failed to help them recover losses incurred by a £12bn rights issue in 2008, claiming investors were misled into participating.

The banks encouraged investors to buy the shares months before the bank was bailed out by the Government in the financial crisis.

Over 12,000 private shareholders, many of whom are pensioners, and over 100 institutional investors who lost money in the rights issue have signed up to the civil suit.

A spokesman for RBoS Shareholders said: "Today represents a giant step forward for the many thousands of ordinary people who lost money as the result of inexcusable actions taken by banks and their directors in the financial crisis. Now, for the first time, some of these directors will have to answer for their actions in a British court."

RPC banking litigation partner Simon Hart commented: "This is one of the largest shareholder actions we have seen brought against the UK banks. These type of actions are by their nature relatively rare but have been borne directly out of the unprecedented upheavals in the banking industry in 2008."