Employee Benefit Scheme legal action

In 1986, Patrick Gee, the managing director of the company, set up an employee benefit scheme to give ordinary workers shares in the company. After Gee's early death, Timothy Ingram Hill took over as Roadchef's managing director, having helped lead a management buyout of the company in 1983. With his status as one of the original trustees of the employee benefit scheme, he set up a second scheme where he was the sole beneficiary, and secretly transferred the bulk of the employees' shares to it.^[7] This left employees with a much reduced scheme.^[8]

Tim Warwick, who worked as Roadchef's company secretary at the time of the transfer, blew the whistle on the Ingram Hill's transfer of the shares in 1998. A prolonged legal battle ensued, with the courts eventually declaring the transaction void in 2015 and ordered Mr Ingram Hill to repay the profit he made from the shares he appropriated.^[9]

Issues arose afterwards, when the trustees of the scheme discovered that an extra £10 million had been paid in tax for the shares by Ingram Hill and was thus due to be given to them. This money was recovered by the trustees, but the HMRC insisted that most of the tax should be paid by the trustees, due to Ingram Hill possessing the shares instead of the employees when the government passed legislation to make employee share schemes tax-free.^[10] The trustees argued that the shares should not be taxed, as the scheme should be in the tax-free category if Ingram Hill had not appropriated the shares. The trustees further argued that the scheme could be retrospectively added to the list of tax-free schemes.

By July 2019, the ongoing dispute with HMRC was the only remaining obstacle in distributing the money to the affected employees, with the current Roadchef management expressing support for the trustees.^[11] As of September 2020, the money has still not been distributed back to the staff.^[10]

Catering

Restaurants at Roadchef sites include:

• McDonald's
• Costa Coffee
• LEON
• Pret A Manger
• Chozen Noodle
• Fresh Food Cafe
• The Garden Square Deli
• The Breakfast Kitchen ^[13]

Shop

Roadchef shop brands include:

• WHSmith - the main shop at all sites
• SPAR
• Cotton Traders