Entrepreneur Andrew Regan, the majority shareholder in celebrity chef-backed shell company Conival, has ended a 10-year legal fight after agreeing an out-of-court settlement with the Co-operative Group.
Regan, who staged an abortive hostile bid for the Co-operative Group in 1997, was recently cleared of charges that he stole £2.4m from his former company, Hobson subsidiary FE Barber, to bribe Co-operative Group buyers to clinch a lucrative supply deal.
However, the Co-operative Group pursued the case through the civil courts with a £10m claim for damages against Regan, former CWS chief buyer David Chambers, former CWS chief general manager Allan Green, and alleged Regan intermediary Ronald Zimet and his company Trellis International. A Co-operative Group spokesman said “a substantial payment” had been made to the group. “We now regard this matter as closed.”
Chambers and Green were each sentenced to a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence in 2002 for corruptly accepting inducements.
Conival recently acquired Marco Pierre White’s Portfolio Products, which owns the rights to products endorsed by Jean-Christophe Novelli, Nancy Lam and Vineet Bhatia.
Regan, who staged an abortive hostile bid for the Co-operative Group in 1997, was recently cleared of charges that he stole £2.4m from his former company, Hobson subsidiary FE Barber, to bribe Co-operative Group buyers to clinch a lucrative supply deal.
However, the Co-operative Group pursued the case through the civil courts with a £10m claim for damages against Regan, former CWS chief buyer David Chambers, former CWS chief general manager Allan Green, and alleged Regan intermediary Ronald Zimet and his company Trellis International. A Co-operative Group spokesman said “a substantial payment” had been made to the group. “We now regard this matter as closed.”
Chambers and Green were each sentenced to a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence in 2002 for corruptly accepting inducements.
Conival recently acquired Marco Pierre White’s Portfolio Products, which owns the rights to products endorsed by Jean-Christophe Novelli, Nancy Lam and Vineet Bhatia.
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