23rd Apr 2019 13:08
LONDON (Alliance News) - Investigators into a profit inflation scandal that hit the Italian unit of FTSE 100-listed BT PLC have suggested senior executives may have been involved in the activities, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Italian prosecutors have alleged that senior BT executives were at the heart of the issue or artificially inflating profit at the unit despite the company denying this was the case.
Reuters reported on Tuesday it had seen emails by the Italian financial police which implicates a number of executives including current BT Wholesale Finance Director Brian More O'Ferrall.
Reuters cited the Italian investigators report as saying: "A series of emails between the top financial executives of BT PLC and managers of the (Italian) unit point to the existence of 'insistent' requests by the leadership of the parent company aimed at achieving ambitious economic targets, even using aggressive, anomalous and knowingly wrong accounting practices."
In the past, BT has blamed former executives of the Italian unit for the bookkeeping irregularities and argued that senior management in London had been unaware of this. The scandal eventually led to BT suffering a GBP530 million charge in early 2017.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-bt-italy-exclusive/exclusive-british-telecoms-italian-job-had-london-roots-say-investigators-idUKKCN1RZ0IQ
Shares in BT were 0.5% lower at 228.60 pence on Tuesday.
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