Topshop billionaire Sir Philip Green is named in UK Parliament as businessman who tried to stop media reporting allegations of sexual harassment and racism
Retail billionaire Sir Philip Green has been named as the businessman who allegedly used a non-disclosure agreement to stop a British newspaper from reporting allegations against him of sexual harassment, racist abuse, and bullying. None of the allegations have been proven in a court of law.
Lord Peter Hain named the businessman in the House of Lords on Thursday, which allowed Green's name to be made public.
Green had obtained an injunction against The Daily Telegraph newspaper, making it illegal to name him. But British law - so-called "parliamentary privilege" - allows that anything said in Parliament can be published without penalty, regardless of any other restrictions, thus allowing a way around the injunction.
Hain said "I feel it's my duty" to name Green.
He described Green as "Someone intimately involved in the case of a powerful businessman using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse, and bullying, which is compulsively continuing.
He continued, saying: "I feel it's my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question, given that the media have been subject to an injunction preventing publication of the full details of this story which is clearly in the public interest."
Watch the clip below:
Lord Hain's revelation came after The Telegraph reported that it was stopped from reporting the businessman's name as part of an investigation about a #MeToo case in Britain.
Green owns a giant fashion empire that includes Topshop.