Ex-Tesco Executives in Accounting Scandal to Face Trial in 2017

(Bloomberg) Three former Tesco Plc executives charged with accounting fraud will go on trial in September 2017.

Former U.K. chief Chris Bush, Carl Rogberg, the former British finance director, and John Scouler, ex-U.K. commercial director, appeared Thursday in a London court. They were charged with one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of false accounting by the U.K. Serious Fraud Office last month.

The charges followed a two-year SFO investigation of the grocery store’s accounting practices after Tesco told investors in 2014 it had overstated profits by 263 million pounds ($323 million), an amount which has since grown to as much as 326 million pounds. The men are accused of falsifying accounting records "by the inputting of and/or reliance upon commercial income figures which gave a false account of the commercial income earned by Tesco," and "dishonestly" abusing their roles, according to a copy of the charges.

The men only spoke in court to confirm their identities. They indicated at a lower court last month they would plead not guilty.

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