BHS owner ‘failed to hand over details of pensions black hole’
THE disgraced former owner of BHS failed to hand over vital information to an investigation into the sale of the collapsed retailer, a court heard.
Dominic Chappell, 51, a former bankrupt with no retail experience, bought the High Street chain from billionaire Sir Philip Green for just £1 back in 2015.
But the company subsequently crashed just 13 months later, leaving a pensions black hole of £571m. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is prosecuting Chappell for neglecting or refusing to provide information and documents.
The court heard he failed to hand over information about the firm’s two pension schemes after he bought the chain. The watchdog has already agreed a £363m cash settlement with Green in order to rescue the scheme and halted its legal proceedings against the billionaire.
Chappell, who denies three charges of neglecting or refusing to provide information and documents, appeared at Brighton Magistrates Court yesterday.
Opening the case Alex Stein, prosecuting, said BHS – which had around 11,000 employees – was sold to Retail Acquisitions, headed by Chappell, for £1 in March 2015. He told the court TPR had concerns about the future and running of two pension schemes run for 19,000 former BHS employees.
He said: ‘As of March 2015 the combined deficit for both BHS pension schemes was in the region of £500m.’
As a result TPR launched a probe code-named Project Danny into all the dealings surrounding the sale of BHS. It made three requests for information to Chappell, the director and majority shareholder of Retail Acquisitions, in April and May 2016 and February 2017.
Asked if TPR had received any reply to that request by the deadline date, Claire Boorman, a senior case manager at the regulator who led the investigation replied: ‘No, we did not.’
The request for information to Chappell ( pictured) on May 13, 2016 was made by email and by direct delivery post to his home. He responded to the email asking TPR to direct all future correspondence to his lawyers.
Boorman told the court that after all the deadlines had passed Chappell phoned her and told her it would not be possible to access all the information requested by TPR because the firm had gone into administration and the administrator would not give him access to the documents.
The former racing driver has been accused by one former BHS executive of using the 88-year-old chain as his ‘personal piggy bank’ after extracting millions from the firm as it teetered on the brink.
The case continues.