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Additional background facts
Mr Hauxwell-Smith, Mr Brown and Mr Hoult ultimately pleaded guilty to corruption. This will have had an impact on the sentences which they received.
The corruption took place during 1999 and 2000, and a police investigation was launched in February 2001. The defendants were charged in July 2004 and pleaded guilty in September 2007. That gives some indication of how long these matters can take to get to trial.
Although the prison sentences may not seem harsh it should be borne in mind that IKEA recovered £12.6 million from the defendants in 2002.
If Mr Hauxwell-Smith has any assets left he will (probably) be obliged to make a contribution to prosecution costs and be subject to confiscation proceedings.
Hello there,
I am really peculiar what is the current status here. The whole story does indeed sound like a movie but for some reason I suspect neither of them 3 ever got to jail, have they? I work with a medium independent Ikea assembly service provider (Fantastic Furniture assembly) and I try to keep an close eye what happens around the swedish furnishing company. Not sure if you have heard but lately (July 2015), no more than a week ago there was a unfortunate case, where children lost their life "because" of Ikea furniture assembly not secured as it should be. It is not related to the furniture assembly service but nevertheless I could not find much info about IKEA cases and their actual outcome is.
Kind regards,
Bart of fantasticfurnitureassembly.co.uk