Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group has this afternoon confirmed it will in principle sign up to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
Arcadia issued a statement noting that it had only received a copy of the accord at 8:50pm last night, claiming that any reports that the business had not responded this morning were “wholly unreasonable”.
It also noted that Arcadia had a “rigorous ethical trading programme” and highlighted that Topshop’s total orders from Bangladesh were “less than £25,000 to date this year”.
However the group, which owns Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge as well as Evans, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Burton, has agreed to sign the Accord “in order to show support for the initiative”
“This will be done on the condition that we understand the final costs to us, which to date has not been made clear,” the statement said. “As with any other commercial contract we sign, we reserve the right to review our participation if the Accord does not achieve its stated aims within an agreed timescale.”
Arcadia is one of several retailers to have signed the agreement, following the likes of Marks & Spencer, Primark, H&M and Tesco so far this week.
A deadline to sign up has been set for midnight tonight (May 15).
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