Tesco’s British Unit Is Set to Avoid Criminal Charges in Accounting Scandal -<br />By CHAD BRAYMARCH 28, 2017<br />LONDON — The British supermarket giant Tesco said on Tuesday<br />that its domestic business had reached an agreement in principle to avoid criminal charges in an accounting scandal that rocked the company nearly three years ago.<br />On Tuesday, the fraud office said that the deferred prosecution agreement related only to potential criminal liability by the British unit<br />and did not address whether liability of any sort would attach to Tesco itself, or any employee or agent of the company.<br />Tesco said that its British arm, Tesco Stores Limited, would enter a so-called deferred prosecution agreement with the Serious Fraud Office, Britain’s anticorruption watchdog,<br />and pay a penalty of 129 million pounds, or about $162 million.<br />In its inquiry, the Financial Conduct Authority said<br />that it had found that Tesco put out a misleading statement in August 2014 about its expected profit in the first half of the year and relied on information provided to it by Tesco Stores Limited in doing so.<br />That agreement is subject to final approval at a court hearing next month<br />and is related to false accounting statements from February 2014 to September 2014.<br />On Tuesday, the company also said that it had agreed to pay an estimated £85 million, plus interest, to<br />compensate investors after a related inquiry by another regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.
