EASYJET is considering legal action against its out- spoken founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in the latest twist in the boardroom bust-up.
Chief executive Johan Lund- gren said the airline would not rule any measures out after Stelios repeatedly published allegations the company insists are outright lies.
Stelios has been in a public battle with Easyjet’s manage- ment for several months over a £4.5bn order for more than 100 planes with Airbus, which he believes will bankrupt the air- line if it is not cancelled and is no longer necessary.
In his efforts to get the con- tract axed, he unsuccessfully tried to unseat four board members – including Lund- gren – and has offered a £5m bounty to ‘whistleblowers’ who can provide him with information that could scup- per the order.
Since making the extraordi- nary request, Stelios claims he has received information showing board members met a Swiss lawyer linked to the Panama Papers scandal – which the company denies. Lundgren said: ‘We
Easyjet founder fights back as furious airline considers legal action have been very clear the alle- gations are all completely false and we think it’s very disrup- tive and very disturbing as we manage our way through this pandemic.
‘We need to consider what our options are – there are lots of actions we could pursue.’ In response, Stelios said: ‘The short answer to any of the scoundrels if they are threat- ening to sue me is “see you in court”.’
Stelios alleges finance boss Andrew Findlay and former directors, now-ITV chief execu- tive Carolyn McCall and Stobart Group boss Warwick Brady, had a secret dinner in 2016 with Marc Bon- nant, which was arranged by Airbus. Accord-ing to the Panama Papers, financial and legal documents leaked in 2016, Bonnant was a director of at least 176 of the off-shore shell corporations registered through Panama- nian law firm Mossack Fon- seca. It was suspected some of the shell corporations regis- tered were used for illegal activities such as fraud – although there is no sugges- tion those linked to Bonnant were used for this purpose.
Easyjet has said the direc- tors were all in meetings on the dates he has pinpointed. Stelios still owns a third of Easyjet’s shares with his family – though he sold a 0.7pc stake in the group last week, worth around£22m.Easyjet sharesfell4.7pc in trading yesterday
Daily Mail
