Written evidence submitted by Tesco PLC
I have been following your inquiry into Press
Standards, Privacy and Libel with interest.
Further to comments made during a recent session,
I wanted to provide some background on our recent case against
the Guardian.
The Guardian published a highly inaccurate
and damaging article in February last year accusing Tesco of avoiding
£1 billion of corporation tax on some sale and leaseback
deals. This was despite our having explicitly told the Guardian
five times prior to publication that these allegations were
untrue.
The Guardian then refused to accept they
had made a mistake and apologise for or retract the piece. We
were therefore unfortunately left with little choice but to issue
legal proceedings to protect our reputation and set the record
straight. The matter was finally settled when the Guardian
agreed to publish a full apology and front page notice in
September last year, although it was a further six months before
costs were settled.
I fully support free and open debate about the
role and conduct of business, but as I am sure you agree it is
vital that this debate is based on fact, not fiction.
May 2009
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