Tesco's Lawyers Sue Guardian

Following Tesco's recent lawsuit against people who oppose its stores in Thailand, the company's UK lawyers now have The Guardian in their sights. Apparently, Tesco objects to recent articles that alleged it was using offshore banking to avoid paying £1bn in corporation tax (it appears to admit to using it to avoid paying £50m+ of stamp duty though, which is a lot of tax to most people!). A Guardian spokesperson commented,

"Instead of frankly explaining their position and/or engaging in a public dialogue Tesco has taken the extraordinary step of suing for libel in a clear attempt to close down the debate and discourage others from looking too closely.

"It's hard to think of another large public company which would resort to such bullying tactics."

The full story is here. There's also an interesting commentary on the issue in Director of Finance magazine here, which points out that when large companies sue, they can often suffer badly!