Ashley faces threat of summons from MPs

SPORTS Direct tycoon Mike Ashley is facing a summons from politicians probing the collapse of one of his store chains with the loss of hundreds of jobs.

The Scottish Affairs Committee has taken the extraordinary step of publishing its exchange with the entrepreneur in an attempt to shame him into answering questions over the administration of 28 stores bearing the USC name.

The billionaire, who owns 8.92pc of Rangers FC, has given the MPs the run-around after they invited him to give evidence at a time of his choice.

Instead, Sports Direct has tried to palm them off with chairman Dr Keith Hellawell saying Ashley was too busy. The politicians were having none of it and asked him to forward his schedule. They also issued a veiled threat that they would formally issue him with a summons requiring him to appear.

Ashley continued to wriggle out of committing himself. He resisted handing over his schedule and said through his lawyers that threats of a summons are ‘inappropriate’.

Ashley’s lawyers RPC wrote: ‘Mr Ashley has long standing commitments in March which means that he is out of the country and/or not available for that month.’

The committee asked for ‘more clarity on exactly when he [Ashley] is out of the country and when he is in the country but unavailable due to other commitments’.