LONDON — Chris Sullivan, the deputy chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, has left the bank earlier than expected, departing several months after his testimony to a Parliament committee was criticized.
Mr. Sullivan, who became deputy chief executive last year after heading R.B.S.’s corporate bank, was expected to leave the government-controlled bank later this year, after its review of its Ulster Bank operations and further restructuring. That review ended last year, with R.B.S. opting to retain the Irish business.
Mr. Sullivan’s last day at the lender, which is 81 percent owned by the British government, was Dec. 31, a R.B.S. spokesman confirmed on Tuesday. The spokesman declined to provide further details.
Last year, Philip Hampton, the R.B.S. chairman, was forced to apologize for a “lack of clarity” in testimony given by executives, including Mr. Sullivan, before the Treasury Select Committee about the global restructuring group, a controversial unit that assisted businesses facing serious financial difficulties.
“The evidence the bank representatives provided was not correct in answering the question as to whether G.R.G. was a profit center,” Mr. Hampton said in a letter, which was released in November. “This lack of clarity on an important point is very disappointing to the committee as it is to me, and I apologize for it.”
The committee was examining the business after Lawrence Tomlinson, a British businessman and government adviser, claimed the unit artificially forced some businesses facing financial troubles into default so that the R.B.S. unit could profit.
In the wake of Mr. Tomlinson’s report, R.B.S. hired the law firm Clifford Chance to conduct an independent review of its lending practices, particularly the actions of the global restructuring group. In April, the law firm said it found no evidence of systematic and institutional behavior intended to force businesses into default.
The unit was disbanded last year and replaced by a new restructuring group.
An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of the Royal Bank of Scotland chairman. He is Philip Hampton, not Phillip.