Former Shell executive behind Christmas savings club scam

international | consumer issues | other press Friday December 01, 2006 18:04 by ShellWatch

Sir Clive Thompson, former Shell marketing executive, is the director of the now-collapsed Farepak firm which has lost 150,000 low-income savers around €600 each. Thompson, chairman of Farepak's parent company European Home Retail, has a long track record of controversy - in 1998 he made a speech at the CBI annual dinner where he asserted that statutory union recognition should be put in a handbook to help firms improve their "pest control techniques".

Thompson is a vociferous opponent of the minimum wage and argued that poor and unhappy people are easier to motivate, stating that "someone who is happy is extremely difficult to motivate".