Sir Philip Green's Arcadia agrees £30m deal in BHS legal battle

Will Sir Phillip Green lose his gong after MP'S vote?

21 October

MPs have unanimously called for billionaire Sir Philip Green to be stripped of his knighthood.

A motion calling for the honour to be annulled was "unopposed, meaning no full vote was needed," says the BBC.

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The move was discussed during a three-hour debate in parliament yesterday, during which the former BHS owner came in for scathing criticism from MPs from all parties over his role in the demise of the department store. He was branded a "spiv" and an "asset-stripper" and also likened to Napoleon.

Business committee chairman Iain Wright, who co-authored a report into the collapse of the chain that laid blame for the failure firmly at Green's door, "provided the most memorable line", says The Guardian's Nil Pratley.

"He took the rings from BHS’s fingers, beat it black and blue, starved it of food and water, put it on life support and then wanted credit for keeping it alive," Wright railed.

However, adds the journalist, the debate, for all that it was "entertaining", was "absurd". The award of a knighthood to a man who made the "angry tirade" a genre of his own and who "paid… dividends to his Monaco-resident wife" was, in the first place, "ludicrous".

The MPs' vote is purely symbolic: the power to remove the knighthood rests solely with the Honours Forfeiture Committee, which typically only acts in cases where criminality has been proved.

Pressure from parliament could encourage the sort of exception that was made for former RBS boss Fred Goodwin, though, and Pratley says the committee will "surely" act unless Green honours a pledge to rescue BHS's pension fund.

Even if the committee removes his gong "Green will still have a moral obligation to repair the damage to BHS’s pension fund, which is probably where MPs should concentrate their efforts", Pratley adds.

"And the honours system, as it applies to mid-career business people, will still be daft."

The Daily Telegraph's Allister Heath says he "won't be defending" Green – "not even for a nano-second" – but adds there is a danger the "kangaroo court" of MPs' outrage could have "unintended consequences".

At a time when Green is reportedly closing in on a deal to inject hundreds of millions of pounds to prevent BHS pension fund members' payouts being cut, he says, it can only be hoped the "events of the past 24 hours haven’t made a realistic solution less likely".

MPs slam Sir Philip Green over 'cash for honours' BHS deal

20 October

Sir Philip Green is "moving towards" a BHS pension deal and will meet the pension regulator to iron out remaining issues either today or tomorrow, says the BBC.

However, the timing of the announcement has been greeted with scepticism from some MPs, who today vote on whether or not to strip the businessman of his knighthood.

It made the issue "essentially cash for honours", said one politician.

Green has repeatedly said he is working on a deal to prevent the BHS pension fund being placed into the industry lifeboat, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), an assurance he said once more in an interview with ITV News this week.

BHS collapsed in April with a £571m deficit in its pension scheme. If it enters the PPF, scheme members who have not yet hit their nominal retirement age could face a ten per cent cut to payouts.

Labour MP Frank Field, the chairman of parliament's pension committee, has called on Green to "write a cheque" to fill the shortfall.

Several MPs contacted by the BBC believe Green will inject hundreds of millions of pounds into the pension fund - but only to save his title.

Politicians decide this morning whether to advise the Honours Forfeiture Committee to annul Green's knighthood, although the vote is purely symbolic as they have no power to force the independent body to act.

Nevertheless, it would still send a powerful message – and many believe it is this that has spurred Green into action.

This week, he has published legal opinion fiercely critical of the official parliamentary report into the collapse of BHS and now comes the news of a pension deal after months of delay.

Despite the more conciliatory tone, Green has also had another swipe at Field, who he has previously demanded resign as chair of the pensions committee and threatened to sue.

In an open letter, the billionaire accuses the veteran Labour MP of making "highly defamatory and false statements", says The Guardian. In particular, he complains that no regret was shown over "malicious" comments that insinuated the Topshop owner was "nicking money".

Sir Philip Green is 'sad and very, very, very sorry' over BHS collapse

19 October

Sir Philip Green is trying hard to rebuild his reputation in the wake of the collapse of BHS, the blame for which has been laid squarely at his door.

In an exclusive interview with ITV News's Robert Peston, the retail tycoon issued his most humble apology yet for the retailer's demise, telling 11,000 former staff and 20,000 pension scheme members he is "sad and very, very, very sorry".

He said it had been a difficult time for him, revealing he attended a bruising six-hour parliamentary hearing just days after having "stent done in my heart" – and that a summer of media scrutiny had been a "horrible, horrible, horrible period" for his family.

But on the question of his support for the stricken pension fund, Green was unable to offer any more clarity on when or even if a promised deal would ultimately be forthcoming.

He said: "What I can confirm to you is this: we are in very strong dialogue with the regulator for a solution. The commitment I made at the select committee stands. I said I would do my best to find a solution and that's what we continue to do."

Green said there were "complexities" relating to the fact the pension scheme no longer has a "sponsoring employer".

He specifically rejected the charge, levelled repeatedly by the parliamentary pensions committee chairman Frank Field, that he was not willing to provide sufficient rescue funding of up to £600m.

"There has been no conversation with anybody involved in this who doesn't believe that the funding will be made available… to fix it," Green said.

He also reiterated his defence against criticism that he and his fellow directors took hundreds of millions of pounds from BHS in the early years of his ownership, claiming to have ultimately invested £550m more than was ever paid out in dividends.

The interview comes a day after expert legal opinion commissioned by Green branded the MPs' report into the matter "bizarre" and "unsupportable" – and in the week that parliament can vote on whether to strip him of his knighthood.

As to the debate about his honour, Green said: "I care about how these people are behaving, you know, all hiding behind parliamentary privilege and… trying to bully everybody."

Sir Phillip Green's legal experts hit out at 'bizarre' BHS report

18 October

A highly-critical report by MPs that lays the blame for the collapse of BHS at the door of its former owner Sir Philip Green has been attacked as "bizarre" and "unsupportable" by two top barristers.

Lord Pannick, "an authority on public law who has argued 100 cases before Britain's highest court", and Michael Todd, a specialist on company law, were commissioned by Green to provide a response to the parliamentary report published this summer, says the Financial Times.

Their verdict is as scathing as the joint business and pensions committee was of Green.

In an 82-page "rebuttal", they denounce the MPs' paper as reflective of an "unfair" and "biased" approach – and they argue that "if parliamentary privilege did not prevent a legal challenge" a court would set the findings aside.

Pannick "reserved his most withering criticism" for pension committee chairman Frank Field, who before hearing from a single witness said Green should fill the £571m BHS pension fund black hole or face losing his knighthood.

Field's "apparent predetermination as chairman infects the whole of the report, which therefore cannot stand", Pannick concluded.

Parliament will vote on Thursday on whether to call for Green to be stripped of his honour. The decision rests with the Honours Forfeiture Committee, which has not yet confirmed it is even considering the case.

Criticism in the MPs' report focuses on the sale of BHS by Green's retail group early last year to Dominic Chappell, a retail novice who had twice been declared bankrupt.

Green and his fellow directors "overlooked or made good each of Chappell's shortcomings and proceeded with a rushed sale regardless", even providing £25m of financing to the buyer, MPs said.

Green's legal team describe the criticism as "bizarre" and the money provided as "lawful" and "unsurprising".

They also dismissed criticism of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of dividends taken in the early years of Green's ownership of BHS, saying this was not to blame for the pension deficit that is still to be resolved.

According to the BBC, the barristers' report states: "These dividends were lawful and were paid at a time when the BHS pension schemes were in surplus. BHS was not sold until 10 years later.

"The law does not prevent a company from paying dividends because of a risk that the company might become insolvent many years later."

Will MPs strip Sir Philip Green's knighthood?

14 October

MPs could vote next week to strip Sir Philip Green of his knighthood.

MPs were already scheduled to debate the collapse of BHS and its ongoing pension scheme woes, says the BBC. But Conservative MP and Treasury committee member Richard Fuller added an amendment calling for a vote on removing the honour from the businessman, who owned BHS for 15 years and was blamed for its demise in a parliamentary report this summer.

Green bought the high street retailer through his Arcadia Group empire in 2000 but sold it for £1 to Dominic Chappell, a twice-bankrupt retail novice, early last year. The company went into administration 13 months later.

Both former owners have been accused of taking millions of pounds out of the business while it was struggling, with Green specifically accused of deliberately under-funding the BHS pension fund, which was in the red to the tune of almost £600m at the time the company failed.

The parliamentary motion "notes the failure of [Green] over many years to resolve the deficit in the BHS pension fund" and "calls on the Honours Forfeiture Committee to cancel and annul his knighthood", says the Daily Telegraph.

If accepted, it would be the first time parliament has voted to have an honour removed.

However, it would not necessarily mean Green would lose his knighthood. Parliament has no formal say over this; the decision lies in the hands of the Honours Forfeiture Committee.

Honours are rarely removed and usually only when an individual is convicted of a serious crime or struck off by a regulatory body.

Other cases that bring the honours system into "disrepute" are occasionally considered - the committee previously stripped former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin of his knighthood.

The vote may not even get the go ahead: it still needs to be accepted by speaker John Bercow. Some believe he should refuse as MPs would be overstepping their bounds.

Lord Kerslake, who was in charge of the honours system as head of the Civil Service from 2012 to 2014, told the Telegraph an MPs' vote would put unfair pressure on the committee and that a motion saying "there was a case to be answered" would be "more appropriate".