By Sheila Mckenzie-
The Times Newspaper published inaccurate dividend yields for “a number of years”, press regulator IPSO said this week.
IPso’s ruling published on Thursday follows a complaint from investor Ken Hodgson who repeatedly raised issue with The Times and its data supplier, a financial services firm, about figures in the equity price listing over the course of several years before approaching IPSO with a formal complaint over the 9 July 2022 listings.
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The Times apologised for the error, but IPSO concluded that offering a correction in March 2023 “six months after the publication had been made aware of the IPSO complaint, and several years since it had been made aware of the issue with the data” was not sufficiently prompt.
IPso’s ruling concluded that the Times had been misled by the supplier with regards the accuracy of the data, IPSO said: “It was extremely regrettable that the issue with the data had not been identified and acknowledged by the firm and the publication until the complaint to IPSO.”
The regulator found there had been a serious breach of Clause 1 (accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice because the case involved “significant inaccuracies, spread over several pages, over a period of time, which had the potential to affect readers’ financial decisions”.
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The investor pointed out that the listings included the highest and lowest share prices for various companies as well as their calculated dividend yields.
In the listings on pages 67 to 71 for 9 July 2022, Hodgson said the percentages had been calculated using dividends from 2020 payments instead of 2021. In general, he said, the listings used the previous year’s financial information and were updated somewhere between seven to 18 months late.
IPSO said: “In circumstances where the publication had been made aware of the potential issues with the data yet had continued to publish it and where there was now no dispute that the current figures were inaccurate, this represented a failure to take care over the accuracy of the data.”
The regulator added that the inaccuracy was “significant” because the “intended use of this information was to inform investors on dividend yields”, adding that The Times now appears to “accept that the inaccuracies had been published over a number of years”.
The regulator said an explanation should “help investors and people interested in this information understand the way in which the data had been calculated”.
The Times, one of the most reputable publications in the UK, responded to the criticism by publishing a correction in its corrections and clarifications column in March which stated: “The dividend yields published in our share price listing pages (Business) were found last month to contain errors. We have temporarily suspended publication of this data while our supplier identifies and resolves the problem.
“As soon as we are satisfied that the data supplied to us is correct, publication will be resumed. We apologise for any inconvenience in the meantime.”
IPSO criticised the correction sufficiently addressed the inaccurate data, it had “failed to address directly the fact that the explanation of the methodology had been inaccurate”.
IPSO also concluded that offering a correction in March 2023 “six months after the publication had been made aware of the IPSO complaint, and several years since it had been made aware of the issue with the data” was not sufficiently prompt.
The Committee considered the wording was sufficient to address the inaccurate data, pointing out that the paper had failed to address directly the fact that the explanation of the methodology had been inaccurate. The Committee therefore considered the requirements of Clause 1 had not been met.
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