Carllion news: boss Philip Green takes 'full and complete' responsibility for company's collapse

'Full responsibility': Philip Green
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Robin de Peyer6 February 2018

Former Carillion chairman Philip Green has said he takes “full and complete” responsibility for the company’s collapse.

The company – which offered services for schools, prisons and hospitals – went into liquidation last month when Mr Green was at its helm.

MPs from the Work and Pensions Committee were grilling its former directors on Tuesday after more than 800 jobs were lost following the company’s collapse.

Mr Green said his responsibility was “full and complete, total - no question in my mind about that. Not necessarily culpability but full responsibility".

He added: "The collapse is the responsibility of the chairman and the board. As chairman of the board, I take full responsibility.

"We went into the year with too much debt.

"Contracts deteriorated rapidly and because we didn't have that wiggle room, that was a significant factor."

Mr Green rejected the suggestion by that directors should not be permitted to work at other companies.

"I believe that all of the board, every decision we took was right at the time we took it."

Carillion, which employed almost 20,000 workers across Britain, had multimillion-pound contracts spanning the education, health, justice, defence and transport industries.

But on January 15 it announced it was going into liquidation after talks failed to find another way to deal with the company's debts.

Weeks after the company's collapse, more than 17,000 staff are still waiting to hear their fate.

The company is now in the hands of an official receiver, part of the government's Insolvency Service.

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