Three profit warnings… but French passport boss paid £2.4m

THE boss of the Franco-Dutch company picked to make Britain’s postBrexit passports was paid £2.4million last year – more than twice as much as his counterpart at the rival UK firm.

Despite Gemalto, the government’s preferred bidder for producing new blue passports, admitting to being ‘outpaced’ in ‘the most difficult year in its history’, French boss Philippe Vallée took home nearly 2.8million euros (£2.4million). At the same time, the company had to issue three profit warnings.

Mr Vallee’s pay included a bonus of £357,000, ‘incentive payments’ of £936,000 and benefits including pension payments of £480,000. In comparison, De La Rue chief Martin Sutherland was paid £899,000 last year.

More than 329,000 people have signed the Daily Mail’s petition to reverse the decision to give Gemalto the £490million contract.

De La Rue makes the UK’s current burgundy passports and up to 200 jobs at its factory in Gateshead are at risk. It is considering taking the Home Office to court over the decision to outsource passport making abroad and has until Tuesday to lodge a challenge.

It is believed to be considering challenging the decision on the grounds Gemalto have knowingly bid under cost price.

Details of Mr Vallée’s salary are contained within Gemalto’s annual report, in which chairman Alex Mandl claims 2017 was ‘the most difficult year’ in the company’s history. It also issued three profit warnings in four months, with shares slumping 20 per cent and to their lowest level in more than five years last summer.

Ian Mearns, the MP for Gateshead, said: ‘The Government need to look at the underpinning values of the companies involved who are tendering to produce a precious item like the British passport.

‘You have a company which is employing British workers on decent salaries against a company which has issued three profit warnings and where the chief executive of the company has paid himself £2.4million.’

It came as experts told how vulnerabilities were found in products supplied by Gemalto, putting them at risk to hackers.

More than 14 vulnerabilities were found in software it provides mostly to businesses, known as licensing management systems, which act as a type of product key to ensure software is being used legally.

Vladimir Daschenko, head of the vulnerability research team at Kaspersky Lab, said the Sentinel LDK product in particular was vulnerable. He told the Mail: ‘Frankly speaking, we were surprised by some of the vulnerabilities when we started researching how popular this solution is... a lot of different companies are using this Gemalto licensing system.’ He said that, in theory, it meant hackers could access and steal sensitive personal information businesses hold on their clients.

Regarding pay, a Gemalto spokesman said: ‘The board of directors determines the CEO’s compensation in accordance with the remuneration policy approved by shareholders. He added: ‘Based on the feedback from Kaspersky, we are evaluating our customer communication mechanisms to enhance the efficacy of future security bulletins to ensure our customers receive the updates in a timely manner.’