Former Carillion chief banned from being a director for eight years

Richard Howson, aged 55, will not be able to be a director of a UK company after the authority said he ought to have known that the way some contracts were reported “concealed the reality of the deterioration”.

The former chief executive “ought” also to have known of the “false accounting, of the profit overstatement and of the net debt understatement and of the concealment from the auditors” around what payments Wolverhampton-based Carillion was obliged to make to Wipro, a consultancy.

He also signed off on a £54.4 million dividend, which was paid in June 2017, but “could not be justified by reference to the … financial statements”, the Insolvency Service said.

“Mr Howson ought to have known that the 2016 final dividend payment was not in the interests of Plc, its members or its creditors and was not one that Plc could reasonably afford to make in view of its true financial performance.”

Carillion issued a profit warning just a month after the dividend was paid out to shareholders. Less than a year later, the firm – which employed around 12,000 people – collapsed.

Mr Howson is not the first to be suspended. This summer former finance boss Zafar Khan was banned from being a director for 11 years.

An Insolvency Service spokesperson said: “The Insolvency Service, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, has accepted a disqualification undertaking from Richard Howson for eight years for his conduct as a director of Carillion Plc.

“This follows the disqualification undertakings the Insolvency Service accepted from Zafar Khan on June 29 and from Richard Adam on July 13.

“As the litigation against the remaining directors is ongoing, with a trial set to commence the week of October 16, we are unable to comment any further.”

Mr Howson stepped down as chief executive in July 2017 six months before Carillion went under.

He had taken up post as chief executive in December 2011 after previously being chief operating officer.

He worked at Balfour Beatty, Bovis, and Wolverhampton-based Tarmac before becoming operations director for the Carillion Building business in 1999. In March 2004 he was promoted to national construction director on the Carillion Building senior management team, before becoming managing director of Carillion Rail in 2006, and then managing director of Carillion's Middle East and North African operations in 2007. He was appointed chief operating officer in September 2010.