Former Carillion boss banned as a director for eight years

The former chief executive of collapsed outsource giant Carillion has been banned from being a director for eight years.

In a statement, the Insolvency Service said it had accepted a disqualification undertaking from Richard Howson for his conduct as a director at Carillion, which he led from 2012 until July 2017.

It alleged that Howson had failed to disclose crucial information about major contracts to the firm’s auditors, and had caused misleading stock market announcements.

It addition, the service - which manages corporate collapses as an arm of the Department for Business and Trade - noted that the payment of a £54.4m final dividend in 2017 "could not be justified".

Carillion held scores of government contracts, from building hospitals to managing schools, and employed around 20,000 people in the UK.

But its debts mounted and in 2017 it issued three profit warnings in five months, including writing down more than £1bn from the value of its contracts.

Howson is the latest executive to be banned, after Zafar Khan was barred for 11 years and Richard Adam for 12 in the summer. Adam was finance director from 2007 to 2016. Khan then held the role until Carillion went into compulsory liquidation in January 2018.

Howson told The Times that he had decided "as a result of my personal circumstances, and in the interests of my wonderful family, to draw a line under the disqualification proceedings against me by reaching a settlement".

The Insolvency Service launched legal action in January 2001 seeking the disqualification of eight former Carillion directors. As well as Howson, Adam and Khan, former chair Philip Green and director Keith Cochrane - who replaced Howson in the months preceding Carillion’s collapse - were also named.

The agency said it was unable to comment further, as litigation against the remaining directors was ongoing. A trial is set to commence the week of 16 October.