Ex-Tesco execs face retrial over accounting scandal

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which is prosecuting the case, said it had written to the court to seek a retrial of former finance director Carl Rogberg, ex-managing director of Tesco’s UK business Christopher Bush, and former UK food commercial director John Scouler.

The original trial was abandoned last month shortly before the jury was due to consider its verdict, after Rogberg suffered a heart attack.

Rogberg is currently recovering at home after undergoing a quadruple heart bypass.

Charges denied

In 2016, the SFO charged the trio with one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of false accounting in relation to Tesco’s financial irregularities. All three men denied the charges.

The scandal was uncovered in 2014, shortly before Dave Lewis was parachuted in as chief executive.

Profit overstatement

The profit overstatement, which was mainly caused by the grocer booking commercial income early, sent Tesco’s share price tumbling and plunged the business into crisis.

Rogberg’s solicitor Neil O’May, from Norton Rose Fulbright, said the ex-Tesco finance boss was “extremely disappointed” with the SFO’s decision to go for a retrial.

O’May added: “He had wanted the previous jury to be able to reach its verdict and was shocked when that trial was abandoned.

“Mr Rogberg will now continue to fight these allegations to prove his innocence.”