Three former Carillion bosses fined £870k by watchdog

Grant Prior 2 years ago
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Watchdogs at the Financial Conduct Authority have handed out fines to three former bosses of collapse contractor Carillion.

The FCA has decided to fine former chief executive officer Richard Howson £397,800, former finance director Richard Adam £318,000 and former finance director Zafar Khan £154,400.

The trio are appealing their respective Decision Notices to the Upper Tribunal where they will each present their case.

The FCA also said it would have fined Carillion £37.9m if it had not gone under.

An announcement said: “The FCA considers that Carillion recklessly published announcements on 7 December 2016, 1 March 2017 and 3 May 2017 that were misleading and did not accurately or fully disclose the true financial performance of Carillion.

“Those announcements made misleadingly positive statements about Carillion’s financial performance generally and in relation to its UK construction business in particular.

“The announcements did not reflect significant deteriorations in the expected financial performance of Carillion’s UK construction business and the increasing financial risks associated with it.

“In the view of the FCA, Carillion’s systems, procedures and controls were not sufficiently robust to ensure that contract accounting judgments made in its UK construction business were appropriately made, recorded and reported internally to the Board and the Audit Committee.

“The FCA also considers that Mr Howson, Mr Adam and Mr Khan acted recklessly and were knowingly concerned in Carillion’s contraventions.

“In the FCA’s view, Mr Howson, Mr Adam and Mr Khan were each aware of the deteriorating expected financial performance within Carillion’s UK construction business and the increasing financial risks associated with it.

“They failed to ensure that those Carillion announcements for which they were responsible accurately and fully reflected these matters. Despite their awareness of these deteriorations and increasing risks, they also failed to make the Board and the Audit Committee aware of them, resulting in a lack of proper oversight.”

Mark Steward, Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight, said: “Carillion failed to take reasonable steps to establish and maintain adequate procedures, systems and controls to enable it to comply with its obligations under the Listing Rules.

“As a result its true financial position remained hidden over many months and the effects of its collapse were aggravated, causing substantial harm to shareholders and creditors.

“This is market abuse, and as damaging to market integrity as insider dealing and manipulation, though not often described in this way. It should be.

“The FCA’s decisions on the three senior individuals whom the FCA alleges were involved in these failures will now be reviewed in the Upper Tribunal.”

For full details of the Decision Notices click here.

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