This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A critical report into accountancy practices at Sir Philip Green’s retail empire could be published as early as next week after the former owner of BHS failed to win a gagging order via the high court.

Taveta, Green’s empire, which includes Topshop and Miss Selfridge, sought to prevent the full publication of the Financial Reporting Council’s damning report on the failures of the auditors responsible for checking BHS’s accounts.

The company had sought an interim injunction before a judicial review of the FRC’s report, which the court said it was still considering whether to allow.

Mr Justice Nicklin ruled that there were serious issues to be considered in relation to the publication of the report, including whether the FRC had breached its “duty of fairness” by not giving Taveta sufficient opportunity to respond to criticisms of its personnel. He made clear that, if published in its current form, the report risked libelling Tavata staff via “implied criticisms”.

The ruling said these reservations were not sufficient to justify an injunction to block publication of a report by a public body.



However, the FRC may be forced to edit its report after Taveta said it would “vigorously defend any claims or allegations” contained in defamatory statements within it.

“Taveta’s sole concern was (and remains) to be given a fair opportunity to respond, prior to publication, to those parts of the FRC’s report which unnecessarily criticise Taveta and which were so clearly based on a partial and inaccurate view of the facts,” the company said.

The report sheds further light on why Steve Denison, the senior PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant who audited the BHS accounts before its sale for £1, only a year before the department store chain collapsed, was given a 15-year ban and and record personal fine of £325,000 after he admitted misconduct. PwC was given a record £6.5m fine.

In a submission to the court, the accountancy watchdog said it had concluded that the accounts statement stating BHS was a going concern was “obviously insufficient in the face of the pending sale” and some assumptions in the accounts “were not supported by evidence by PWC and were not reasonable”.

Taveta had wanted sections of the FRC analysis to be redacted or changed, arguing that references to members of the former BHS management could cause “serious and potentially irreparable harm” to their reputations.

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It had been thought that Taveta’s actions were prompted by personal criticisms of Green.

However, the ruling on Friday made clear Green was not “adversely affected”.

The Financial Reporting Council said it “will consider the detailed judgment before we publish our report. We hope to do this as soon as possible in the public interest.”