Allan Wood, 59, from Saltersgate in Ellesmere Port, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday (December 23) after admitting to four counts of fraud by abuse of position linked to his role at Cammell Laird.

The case first came to light in January 2021, when the allegations were reported to Merseyside Police, triggering an investigation by their Economic Crime Team.

As detectives dug into the company’s finances, they uncovered the scale of the fraud. Over more than a decade, Wood siphoned off an eye-watering amount of money from his employer.

Finance director Allan Wood moved money into accounts for gambling and personal spending

Between 2007 and 2008 alone, he dishonestly redirected company funds for his own benefit, moving more than £1.5 million ($2 million) into personal accounts and using company money to pay off his personal credit card bills.

On top of that, Wood signed off on more than £315,000 ($426,000) in what was described as “unauthorised corporate entertainment,” spending company cash on himself, friends, and family. This included charging the firm for tickets to the Champions League final and football season tickets. According to the Liverpool Echo, when questioned later, he even came up with a far-fetched claim that the spending was connected to suspected spying within the company.

Altogether, his actions left Cammell Laird out of pocket by £1,870,243.

At the time the fraud was taking place, the company was already under serious financial pressure. Board members had to put in large sums of their own money just to keep things afloat, while staff faced the very real threat of layoffs and strike action.

Wood was sentenced to five years and three months in prison.

Detective Constable Laura Madden, who led the investigation, said: “This fraud placed a business under significant financial pressure, causing distress and worry to all employees. Let’s not also forget the impact it would have had on their families as many feared for their jobs.

“This impact was clearly lost on Wood and he will now be left to consider the full consequences of his actions while he serves time in prison.

“Fraud can and does devastate individuals and businesses, and thankfully Wood has now been prevented from causing any more harm.”

Featured image: Merseyside Police

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To qualify for the refund, consumers who purchased items from Fashion Nova before Nov. 21, 2019, had to make a “valid claim” with the FTC before the August 15, 2023, deadline.

Currently, the FTC is no longer accepting claims in the matter.

In the final order, Fashion Nova is explicitly prohibited from hiding reviews or endorsements, and is obligated to present them to customers “regardless of the endorser’s opinion or rating.”

Additionally, the retailer was ordered to pay $4.2 million.

While recipients of the FTC payments in this case were spread out across the country, according to the commission’s data, Illinois had the largest number of recipients with more than 25,000.

Among the 148,351 recipients, the median refund was $16, according to the FTC.

Fashion Nova is accused of hiding negative reviews on their website. Getty Images for Fashion Nova

The FTC made its allegations against Fashion Nova in January 2022, kicking off the first-of-its-kind case.

“From as early as late 2015 through mid-November 2019, Fashion Nova chose to have four- and five-star reviews automatically post to the website, but did not approve or publish hundreds of thousands lower-starred, more negative reviews,” the FTC wrote in its complaint against Fashion Nova.

The FTC claimed to have found “numerous instances” in which Fashion Nova “suppressed product reviews with ratings lower than four stars,” making the representation of their products “false or misleading.”

The FTC believes that Fashion Nova was suppressing any review under four stars. Getty Images

While this case was the FTC’s first involving negative reviews, it was not the commission’s first case involving Fashion Nova.

In April 2020, the fast fashion retailer agreed to pay $9.3 million over allegations “that it didn’t properly notify consumers and give them the chance to cancel their orders when it failed to ship merchandise in a timely manner, and that it illegally used gift cards to compensate consumers for unshipped merchandise instead of providing refunds.”

The FTC made its allegations against Fashion Nova in January 2022. REUTERS

Additionally, in 2022, the FTC put several companies offering review management on notice, informing them that “avoiding the collection or publication of negative reviews violates the FTC Act.”

In its guide to featuring online customer reviews, the FTC instructs companies to not “prevent or discourage” consumers from submitting negative reviews. While a “reasonable process” to ensure reviews are genuine is allowed, the FTC tells businesses to “treat negative and positive reviews equally.”

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