Former Norton Motorcycles CEO, Stuart Garner, was found guilty of illegally investing pension funds into the business and is facing a two-year jail time.
Garner was responsible for reviving the brand after purchasing the company in 2008.
He then introduced the revamped Commando range and the ambitious V4 superbike project before Norton went into administration in January 2020.
However, he was in the spotlight for injecting the pension funds into the 2012 Dominator, 2012 Commando and the Donington MC schemes to prop the business up.
The act is a clear breach of the law that only allows a maximum of 5 per cent of occupational pension to be invested into the employer’s company.
After an investigation by the Pensions Ombudsman, which found that Garner had acted dishonestly, the court ordered Garner to pay off the money (estimated GBP11mil) in June 2020.
At that time, most of Norton’s assets were already sold to current ownership, TVS Motor Company, for GBP16mil.
Nevertheless, TVS opted to take over the firm; instead, the current Norton brand is a new company with rights to the bikes’ brand name and intellectual property.
Garner pleaded guilty at Derby Magistrates’ Court to three charges of breaching employer-related investment rules, investing money from the three pension schemes into Norton in return for preference shares between 2012 and 2013.
