Ex-BHS owner fined £50,000 over pension failures
FORMER BHS owner Dominic Chappell has been ordered to pay £87,170 after failing to provide information about the firm’s pension schemes to investigators when it collapsed with the loss of thousands of jobs.
Chappell, director of Retail Acquisitions, which bought BHS for £1 from billionaire Sir Philip Green in 2015, was prosecuted by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) under the Pensions Act 2004.
Self-described entrepreneur Chappell had claimed he did “everything and more” to help the regulator but he was convicted of three charges after a four-day trial in January.
He was ordered to pay a £50,000 fine and £37,670 in court costs at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court in London yesterday.
BHS went into administration in April 2016, leaving a £57m pension deficit. Sir Philip later agreed to pay £363m towards it.
Chappell had told the hearing he would have to take out a loan if he was fined, saying the “great perception of me having millions from BHS” was not true and that he had been left “financially crippled”.
He added: “I’m in arrears on a number of bills at the moment I can’t afford to pay,” with “huge amounts of cash flooding out the door”.
District Judge Gary Lucie ordered Chappell to pay the fine at a rate of £2,500 a month.
Judge Lucie said: “There’s been a complete lack of remorse on Mr Chappell’s part. Even when asked questions about his means he gave a self-serving and uninvited diatribe about the case. His counsel Mr Levy said he was a ‘victim in all this’ – in my mind that cannot be further from the truth.”
The businessman’s outgoings included £3,800 a month rent on the Dorset home where he lives with his wife and children, around £32,000 a year renting a new Range Rover and £2,500 a month on private school fees.
He said his only income is his