Thousands of former Lloyds Bank shareholders join legal claim against it from takeover of HBOS on 2008

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Thousands of former shareholders in Lloyds Bank will this week submit a legal claim against the lender over its takeover of HBOS in 2008.

Law firm Harcus Sinclair is compiling a class action lawsuit against the company, now Lloyds Banking Group.

It has until Wednesday to sign up participants in the action, and is expected to say that the figure has soared in the final weeks.

Class action: Former shareholders in Lloyds Bank argue that they were misled as to the weakness of HBOS before they approved its takeover by the lender in 2008

About 5,000 had signed up by early last week and the figure was expected to have reached 10,000 by this weekend.

Harcus Sinclair was scrambling to verify details of claimants this weekend, with a deadline for online applications having closed on Friday.

Several institutional investors have yet to decide whether to join the action and may do so only at the eleventh hour.

Former shareholders argue that they were misled as to the weakness of HBOS before they approved the takeover.

A Lloyds spokesman said: ‘The Group’s position remains that we do not consider there to be any legal basis to these claims and we will robustly contest this legal action.’