The Pensions Regulator has secured a conviction against the chief executive of a leading packaging company, for refusing to divulge relevant information.
Thomas Christopher Wrigley, who was both the chief executive and a major shareholder of Discovery Flexibles Limited as well as the chair of trustees for the company’s pension scheme.
He has been fined £400 by the Scottish courts has been banned by the TPR from being a trustee.
Wrigley now has a criminal conviction after TPR referred the case to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which is responsible for prosecutions in Scotland.
TPR started investigation this case after a whistleblower informed them that Wrigley, in his role of chair of trustees, was considering investing more than £1.2m of pension scheme funds in Discovery Flexibles.
The firm provides packaging for many well-known international companies, such as Cadbury, Mars, Sainsbury’s and Tetley.
There are restrictions on the proportion of an occupational pension scheme’s funds that trustees may invest in its sponsoring employer.
TPR’s investigation was to see if these rules had been, or were likely to be breached. Wrigley refused to comply with request for information and threatened the TPR case manager.
TPR has subsequently appointed an independent trustee to act in Wrigley’s place on the company pension scheme.
It said it was concerned about his integrity, his inappropriate behaviour and his failure to manage the conflict of interest of him being both chairman of the pension scheme trustees and chief executive of the sponsoring employer.
TPR’s executive director of frontline regulation, Nicola Parish, says: “Wrigley earned himself a criminal record by refusing to give us the information he was legally required to.
“His behaviour towards TPR staff doing their job was intolerable so I welcome the fact that the Determination Panel took this into consideration when it decided to prohibit him.
“Complying with our powers is not optional – if we ask you for information under Section 72 you must provide it. If you fail to give us information we’ve asked for, you should be prepared to be prosecuted – and convicted.”