Morrisons has apologised after it was found to have indirectly required suppliers to pay lump sum payments in breach of the Grocery Suppliers Code of Practice (GCSoP).
The payment requests were in breach of the code as they were not included in the supply contract, an investigation by the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) Christine Tacon, has ruled.
Morrisons chief executive David Potts said the retailer has “completely changed the way it works with suppliers”. “These eventshappened a year ago and since then much has been achieved to ensure they don’t happen again. However, we are sorry they happened in the first place,' he said.
“I have brought in a new management team who have modernised and simplified all of our buying practices. We have also reorganised and retrained our buying team.”
Tacon said the Morrisons issue was a relatively small-scale incident, and all suppliers have continued trading agreements with the retailer.
Earlier this year, Tesco was also forced to apologise after the GCA ruled it had breached the code in three areas.
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