Image: Richard Adam
The former financial director of failed contractor Carillion has hit back at claims by MPs that he regarded payments into Carillion’s pension scheme a “waste of money”.
Richard Adam sent an email to the Carillion joint inquiry, which last week condemned Carillion’s “rotten corporate culture” in its final report into the firm’s collapse, disputing its version of events.
Adam complained that the report stated “in a number of places” that he considered payments into Carillion’s pension schemes a “waste of money” and that it appeared to “directly attribute” the words to him.
Adam said this was a misrepresentation of the evidence and denied that they were his words.
“The only evidence cited in the report is an attendance note prepared by Sacker and Partners, of a meeting between Carillion’s pension trustee and the Pensions Regulator on 29 April 2013. I did not attend that meeting,” Adam said in his email.
“According to the attendance note, Robin Ellison, a trustee director of Carillion’s Pension Trust, stated his opinion that ‘the finance director, Richard Adam (‘RA’), considered funding pension schemes to be a ‘waste of money’”. This was Mr Ellison’s opinion of my views, taken in an attendance note by a third party, and not an expression of my views.”
Adam has already disputed the joint inquiry’s characterisation of his role in Carillion’s demise.
In a statement issued after the report’s publication he said: “Despite retiring over a year before Carillion went into insolvency, I am deeply saddened by the events that have since overtaken the company.
“The reasons for the collapse are clearly complex, however, I reject the unwarranted conclusions the committees have reached concerning my role at the company.
“I have objected to the committees about quotes that they have misattributed to me. I look forward to contributing to the due process and conclusion of the various investigations that are still ongoing.”
In a response to Adam’s letter, MPs in the Carillion joint inquiry said: “The committees cannot of course assert that Mr Adam said those precise words in 2013, but have accepted the characterisation in the contemporaneous note by the trustees’ lawyer.
“That attitude was reflected again in his evidence in parliament on 6 February 2018, and further supported by analysis by the scheme’s covenant assessors, Gazelle Finance.
“These, taken alongside his actions as Finance Director throughout, led the Committees to the inescapable conclusion that he considered funding the Carillion pension schemes to be a waste of money.”
