Three Tesco former executives have been charged as part of an ongoing Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into 2014 accounting irregularities at the supermarket giant.
Carl Rogberg, Christopher Bush and John Scouler have been charged with fraud by abuse of position and false accounting, the SFO said.
The three have been asked to appear in court on 22 September.
Tesco said there had been “an extensive programme of change” since 2014.
Bush was managing director of Tesco UK, Rogberg was finance director UK and Scouler was UK food commercial director.
The SFO started a criminal investigation in October 2014, a week after Tesco announced that its profits had been overstated by £263m.
Auditors found that the inflated profit figure was the result of Tesco bringing forward rebates from suppliers.
Scouler is now commercial director at the telecoms company TalkTalk. In a statement the company said:
“We are aware of the SFO’s announcement, but as this is an ongoing investigation unrelated to TalkTalk we cannot comment further.”
BBC
