London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

CBI banned alcohol-only events after staff party, says ex-chief

CBI banned alcohol-only events after staff party, says ex-chief

The former boss of the CBI claims she banned alcohol-only staff events following accusations of drunken behaviour at a summer party.

The lobby group is facing claims of misconduct, including an alleged rape at the CBI summer party in 2019.

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn - the CBI director general between 2015 and 2020 - told the Sunday Times she was not told of a sexual assault at the event.

Instead she was informed there was poor behaviour and staff drank too much.

Dame Carolyn told the newspaper: "There was no sit-down meal. With hindsight, I think that was a real mistake.

"We immediately decided not to allow this kind of format again."

She said previous CBI staff events were formal sit-down dinners with a seating plan. The CBI declined to comment. The BBC has made numerous attempts to contact Dame Carolyn.

The UK's biggest business lobby group is currently fighting for survival following a succession of damaging misconduct allegations, including two separate rape claims.

The assaults are being investigated by the City of London Police.

Following a review by Fox Williams, a law firm, the CBI the admitted that it "failed to filter out culturally toxic people during the hiring process".

CBI president Brian McBride also said: "Our systems of culture management, harm prevention and eradication were insufficient. Individually, some - though not all - of these organisational deficiencies may even seem small.

"But, together, they compounded to cause great harm to some of our own people, and then to the CBI as a whole."

However, Dame Carolyn - who was the CBI's first female director general since it was founded in 1963 - said she disagreed that there was a toxic culture at the organisation that allowed alleged misconduct to occur.

"This is about men behaving badly towards women," she told the newspaper. "I do not accept this connection between the culture of the organisation that I created and the actions of an individual who committed [an alleged] crime."

She said: "One of the issues I also have with this line of reasoning is that it seems to somehow justify the behaviour potentially of a man who committed [an alleged] crime."

Dame Carolyn was director general when John Allan - the outgoing chairman of Tesco - made an inappropriate comment to a CBI employee at its annual conference in late 2019.

Mr Allan, who was president of the CBI between 2018 and 2020, commented on a female staff member's clothing and said it suited her figure.

Dame Carolyn - who is set to join Tesco's board as a non-executive director in September - said: "I did not see his comment as sexualised but rather as a clumsy and insensitive attempt at a compliment by a man from an older generation."

Outgoing Tesco chairman and former CBI president John Allan


She said that as soon as she was aware of the incident, she texted the female employee before confronting Mr Allan the next day on "how demeaning and really inappropriate it was".

Mr Allan has previously said that he was "mortified after making the comment" and "immediately apologised".

"The person concerned agreed the matter was closed and no further action was taken," said a spokesman for Mr Allan.

He has been accused of three other incidents of inappropriate conduct, including allegedly touching a female staff member at Tesco's annual shareholder meeting last year.

Mr Allan said the three claims are "utterly baseless".

Tesco said it had conducted a full investigation into the allegation concerning its employee, including reviewing video footage of the annual meeting.

The supermarket group said it had made "no findings of wrongdoing".

Nevertheless, on Friday it asked Mr Allan to step down early as its chairman, stating: "These allegations risk becoming a distraction to Tesco."

Mr Allan, who will leave in June after eight years in the role, said: "It is with regret that I am having to prematurely stand down from my position as chair of Tesco following the anonymous and unsubstantiated allegations made against me as reported by the Guardian."

He added: "There is no evidence of any wrongdoing at that time or at any stage of my chairmanship at Tesco and I remain determined to prove my innocence."

The CBI, which lobbies the government on behalf of 190,000 businesses, put "all policy and membership activity" on hold in April after swathes of companies either cancelled or suspended their membership following a number of reports in the Guardian.

Staff and firms will be asked to decide on the focus and the future of the CBI at an extraordinary general meeting in June.

The CBI is now being led by Rain Newton-Smith, its former chief economist, and she recently appointed a chief people officer to implement 35 recommendations that were identified from Fox Williams' review.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
×