Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Ex-tesco bosses ‘cooked the books to keep £5m salaries’
THREE former Tesco executives “cooked the books” to protect their bumper pay deals, a court heard.
The trio are accused of using their seniority to “bully and coerce” others in an accounting scandal, which involved “pulling forward” income from deals with suppliers, a trial at Southwark crown court was told yesterday.
It led to Tesco artificially inflating profits by £246million in a stock market announcement in 2014. More than £2billion was wiped off Tesco’s share price when the alleged fraud emerged.
Former Tesco UK managing director Christopher Bush, 51, ex-uk finance director Carl Rogberg, 50, and John Scouler, 49, former UK food commercial director, were charged with fraud by abuse of position and false accounting between February and September 2014.
Opening the trial, prosecutor Sasha Wass QC, said: “All three defendants were aware that income was being wrongly included in the financial records, which were used to inform the stock market. Each was aware that this would lead to the company looking financially healthier than it actually was.”
Ms Wass said it amounted to “cooking the books”. Rogberg got more than £1million in a pay-and-perks package in 2014, Bush nearly £3million and Scouler around £1.5million. Ms Wass said Tesco was operating in “challenging trading conditions”. She added: “Each defendant would have had a very personal interest in keeping the share value of the company high, because a lot of their remuneration package included shares.”
Ms Wass said: “Each of these defendants actively encouraged those working beneath them to falsify the figures. When those employees objected, [they] were bullied or coerced into carrying on.” She said some staff felt forced to resign.
The fraud was exposed due to a paper that was put together “almost secretly” by two workers beneath Rogberg, the court heard. Ms Wass said: “It identified the size of the hole in the accounts.”
Rogberg, of Chiselhampton, Oxon, Bush, of High Wycombe, Bucks, and Scouler, of St Albans, Herts, all deny the charges. The trial continues.