Dominic Chappell to face High Court lawsuit over BHS

Duff & Phelps, the administrators for collapsed department store chain BHS are set to file a lawsuit on Monday against Dominic Chappell, former owner of BHS. The administrators accuse Chappell, who is head of the Retail Acquisitions consortium which acquired BHS for 1 pounds from Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group last March, of failing to cooperate with its investigation into the department store's collapse.

News of High Court lawsuit comes as the parliamentary inquiry concerning the fall of BHS begins, during which both Chappell and Sir Green have been called upon to give evidence to MPs in regards to BHS and its pension scheme, which has a deficit of approximately 571 million pounds. Chappell is set to attend a joint hearing of the parliament's Work and Pensions and Business Invvoation and Skills committees on June 8, whilst Sir Green is set to appear the week after.

The parliamentary hearing will be focusing on the links found between Goldman Sachs and Sir Green, as the Wall Street bank offered informal advice to Sir Green's holding company Taveta Investments in regards to the acquisition of BHS. Frank Field, the Labour MP who chairs the Work and Pensions committee, is eager to understand why Goldman Sachs previously agreed not to be compensated for the advice gave Sir Green on BHS. "I want to know why this was the case. Banks do not make big profits by acting as charities," he said to Sky News.

In the meantime, employees at BHS still remain hopefully that the guerilla style campaign '#SaveBHS' has helped ensured that any succesful bidder will take over the entire department store chain. Potential bidders still in the race to acquire BHS include Matalan founder, John Hargreaves and Philip Day, chief executive of the Edinburgh Woollen Mills.

Photo: BHS, Facebook