Fraudulent Financial Activities at an Essilor Plant in Thailand
Charenton-le-Pont, France (December 30, 2019 – 8:00am) – EssilorLuxottica announces that its subsidiary Essilor International recently discovered fraudulent financial activities in one of its plants in Thailand.
Essilor International filed complaints in Thailand and in other jurisdictions and mobilized all available internal and external resources to put an immediate end to these fraudulent activities and implement remedial actions. It is also carrying out comprehensive investigations and is taking all possible actions to seek to recover the misappropriated funds in order to mitigate the impact on the Group.
The employees known to date to be associated with these fraudulent activities have been terminated. Additional internal controls have been put in place at Essilor International worldwide in order to strengthen existing security processes.
The financial impact is estimated to be of a maximum of Euro 190 million before insurance, pending legal actions and anticipated recovery of further funds currently frozen on various bank accounts. It will be recorded in the operating result of 2019 and will be treated as an adjusted item.
The Board of Directors of EssilorLuxottica is informed and will monitor closely the situation with the support of advisors; it will examine any further steps to be implemented for any such fraudulent activities not to recur.
