Company – under new management – intends to settle claims quickly to avoid 'lengthy' legal proceedings
Multiple Canadian women are among those alleging that they were sexually abused by late Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed, according to a report.
Fayed died last year at the age of 94.
A BBC documentary has led to dozens of women coming forward to say they were raped or sexually assaulted by the businessman.
CTV News confirmed there are Canadian women among those who spoke out, according to the news publication.
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Prosecution Service said that it twice considered bringing charges against Fayed but concluded there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.
Police officers presented the CPS with evidence in 2009 and 2015 "which our prosecutors looked carefully at", it confirmed, according to BBC.
More than 20 women have told the BBC the businessman sexually assaulted or raped them while they worked at Harrods luxury department store in London, according to the report.
Fayed's assaults occurred around the world – including in Canada, the UK, the US, France, Malaysia and Dubai, according to the report.
"It's very much a global case, it’s not just the UK. It happened all over the world," another lawyer, Bruce Drummond, told the BBC.
Previously, the Yukon government placed on leave a worker accused of sexual assault and misconduct in their line of work.
Fayed sold Harrods to a Qatari company in 2010 for around 1.5 billion pounds (C$2.7 billion), noted CTV News.
Harrods looking to ‘settle claims in the quickest way possible’
In a statement about the allegations against the former Harrods boss, the luxury department store said:
“We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Al Fayed. These were the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated, and we condemn them in the strongest terms.
“We also acknowledge that during this time as a business we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologize.”
The store also said that the Harrods of today “is a very different organization to the one owned and controlled by Al Fayed between 1985 and 2010”.
Under the new management, the store “is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do,” it said.
However, in a BBC interview, Dean Armstrong KC, one of the barristers representing alleged victims, argued that the new owners "either didn’t know [about the allegations] – which I find very difficult to accept – or refused to acknowledge that there was this background of sexual misconduct".
Harrods said that it has been their priority “to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved” since new information about historic allegations of sexual abuse came to light in 2023.
Armstrong said that they had 37 clients in the case against Fayed, but the number of people who had contacted them with claims about Fayed was approaching 150, reported BBC.
