Tesco boss Dave Lewis has been called as a prosecution witness in the trial of three of the grocery giant’s former executives allegedly involved in false accounting.
Lawyers for former bosses Carl Rogberg, John Scouler and Christopher Bush have said that the three would plead not guilty.
Mr Lewis is among ten witnesses called by the prosecution in the trial, due to start in September, The Telegraph reported.
Other witnesses include Tesco’s group general counsel Adrian Morris and the head of its internal audit, who was not named.
The case relates to an accounting black hole discovered in Tesco’s accounts in September 2014, just three weeks after Lewis joined the supermarket.
‘Out of the ordinary’
Tesco admitted it had overstated its profits by £250m, later disclosing the figure could be as high as £326m.
When Lewis took the reins, he said he had never seen anything like it and it was “out of the ordinary”.
In its most recent results, Tesco posted its first rise in UK sales for seven years.
The Competition and Markets Authority announced yesterday it had kicked off its investigation into Tesco’s proposed £3.7bn takeover of grocery wholesaler Booker.
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