Fraud, fines, egalitarian principles and Icelandic republics: We’ve got it all on the Lowdown this morning.
* * *
Accountant sentenced for £6m fraud
An accountant has been sentenced to 5 years in the clink after stealing almost £6 million from BMW to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Johannes Franken, of Bromsgrove, worked at the Cowley, Oxford plant where BMW makes Minis. He pretended to pay suppliers but instead paid the funds into his account.
Franken bought, among other things, a diving school in Mauritius, three top of the range BMWs, and a motorbike.
* * *
ICAEW levies fine against EY
EY and one of its top employees have been fined for failing to properly handle a conflict of interest at now defunct Hellas Telecommunications.
The ICAEW said in a statement it had fined EY £250,000 as well as a severe reprimand.
Margaret Mills, an EY partner, was fined £15,000 and also had her knuckles rapped, the ICAEW said.
EY became the administrator of Hellas Telecommunications after it had been its accountant during the previous three years, a breach of the ICAEW's code of ethics aimed at stopping conflicts of interest.
* * *
GT boss to establish profit sharing
Sacha Romanovitch, the new boss at Grant Thornton, has announced a profit share scheme that could boost salaries by 25 per cent as she called for a business revolution to bring back “trust and integrity”.
Romanovitch also revealed that she is capping her own salary as she sets up to take over as chief executive at Grant Thornton next month. Her pay will be limited to a maximum of 20 times the average salary in her firm.
The introduction of the “shared-enterprise” system, modelled on that operated at John Lewis, will allow future profits to be shared between all of its 4,500 staff instead of being restricted to the most senior.
“The benchmark that we are working to is that in great organisations that do this, it ends up being between 10 and 25 per cent of a person’s salary. That is what they can potentially earn as a profit share. John Lewis does it, Arup [the engineering firm] is the other one that does it really well,” said Romanovitch.
* * *
On this day
On this day in 1944, Iceland becomes a republic. You go, Iceland!