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| Treasury steps back from lobby giant after rape claim | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| The Treasury has stopped engaging with the CBI business lobby group until an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations is completed. | |
| The BBC understands the chancellor, along with ministers and officials have "paused engagement" with the CBI. | |
| It comes as the business lobby group faces a number of claims, including sexual assault. | |
| It has hired a law firm to investigate the allegations and has postponed its annual dinner. | |
| The chancellor is usually the keynote speaker at the flagship event of one of Britain's largest business groups, which represents more than 190,000 companies and lobbies politicians on their behalf. | |
| Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was not due to attend this year's dinner, which had been scheduled for 11 May, because he will be out of the country. | |
| But the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, had been set to give a speech. | |
| The CBI is at the centre of several misconduct allegations. The most serious is from a woman who claims she was raped by a senior colleague at a CBI summer boat party in 2019. | |
| The woman told the Guardian newspaper, which first published the claims, that she felt let down by a CBI manager who, she said, advised her to seek out counselling rather than pursue the matter further. | |
| The CBI has said it has found "no evidence or record of this matter" and said given the serious nature of the claims, it has appointed law firm Fox Williams to conduct an investigation. | |
| Commenting on when the investigation by Fox Williams would be completed, the CBI said: "After Easter, the board hopes to have preliminary findings and actions from the first phase of the investigation and, among other steps, will review this pause in event activity at that point." | |
| Some company executives, who are members of the CBI, have described this as an existential crisis for an organisation that describes itself as the "most effective and influential" business organisation. | |
| Asked whether it is considering its membership of the CBI, one energy industry insider told the BBC it is speaking to the lobbyist to "understand their processes". | |
| They said once they found out more information, they will "see if there's anything we need to do". | |
| Related Topics | Related Topics |
| Companies | Companies |
| CBI | CBI |