Mike Ashley, the boss of Sports Direct, can be legitimately compared to the despotic North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, the British press regulator has ruled.

The sportswear tycoon had complained to the press regulator Ipso after an article in the Times suggested he shared many characteristics with the supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Ashley, who has faced years of criticism over working conditions at his business after the Guardian went undercover at Sports Direct’s main warehouse, argued the comparison was unfair because he was not “responsible for extensive humanitarian crimes, and for extreme social and political suppression”.

The accusations were made in a comment piece that appeared in the Times business section in September 2017. The article included suggestions that Ashley was a “supreme leader”, that he was “in charge of what many regard as a rogue institution”, that his “inner circle is packed with family members and toadies”, that he “routinely flouts the norms of good behaviour and sticks two fingers up at his critics”, and that he was a “relative lightweight, but has run circles around his much more powerful enemies”.

The article went on to state: “Apart from that, and a common rotundity, there is no similarity between Mike Ashley and Kim Jong-un.”

The Times argued these observations were fair comment with “adequate factual basis”.

Sports Direct made a legal complaint to the newspaper in October before following it up with a complaint to Ipso earlier this year.

Following an investigation Ipso concluded it was “clearly a polemical comparison” which was a “matter of comment and interpretation” and the Times had been able to show it was made “on an adequate factual basis”.

“The article did not suggest that the complainant and Kim Jong-un were directly equivalent, deserving of similar moral condemnation,” said Ipso. “The newspaper was able to show that the comment had been based on an adequate factual basis, and there was no failure to take care not to publish inaccurate or misleading information in making the comparison.”

Ipso did, however, conclude that the Times had included a significant inaccuracy in the article with its claim that Sports Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse was “found by parliament” to have been run like “Victorian warehouse” and that it had “gulag conditions”. These claims were actually made by a representative of the Unite union who was giving evidence to a select committee, rather than by MPs themselves.

Ipso ruled that the piece should be updated online to reflect the correct information.