Vince Cable writes to supermarket regulator over Tesco’s fractious relationship with suppliers
At some point in the past few weeks, Business Secretary Vince Cable wrote to the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) to voice his concerns about the supplier base of troubled supermarket Tesco, according to Sky News.
Cable is believed to told the GCA that he supports a comprehensive review of Tesco's relationship with suppliers and whether it had anything to do with the company's disastrous profit misstatement.
The Business Secretary is said to have emphasised that he didn't want to prejudice the review in any way but that it would come under scrutiny from the public.
Sky News' Mark Kleinman revealed that the Lib Dem cabinet minister is worried over Tesco's tough negotiating stance towards its suppliers. The GCA was established by Cable in 2012 to regulate the dealings between supermarkets and their suppliers.
Last week, the Serious Fraud Office launched a formal criminal investigation into accounting errors at Tesco, that led to a £263m profit error. The SFO had previously said it was “following developments at Tesco with interest”.