In the latest, high profile case brought by the Serious Fraud Office two ex-Tesco directors Chris Bush and John Schouler have been acquitted after the Judge dismissed their case due to lack of evidence. The case was so poorly argued that Judge Royce after reading the case of the prosecution felt compelled to issue the following statement.
“I concluded in certain crucial areas the prosecution case was so weak it should not be left for a jury’s consideration”
The fact that Judge Royce felt compelled to end the case without even hearing from the defence is highly unusual and although not publically stated infers that the SFO didn’t really understand what they were trying to assert.
However undeterred by what was a quite damning appraisal, the SFO decided to waste public money by seeking to appeal. The Court of Appeal has now affirmed the original decision and refused the SFO permission to continue.
This comes soon after a rather damning Judicial Review which criticised the SFO for failing to address relevant considerations, taking into account irrelevant matters and applying the wrong legal tests to the assessment that it made.
You can find the link to the full text of the Judicial Review here
The Issue
In autumn 2014, Tesco said that profits had been overstated by about £250m and it was alleged that they were aware that income was being wrongly included in the company’s financial records for that year. This was due to the early recognition of payments from suppliers, as well as delays in applying certain costs. Neither of which are good accounting practices and the company had already paid a huge fine for this.
