Ipsos Sues Aegis Over ‘Misleading’ Synovate Sale, Probe

Ipsos SA said in a London lawsuit that Aegis Group Plc inflated profits and failed to disclose tax and fraud probes at Synovate before it sold the market research unit in 2011 to Ipsos for 525 million pounds ($792 million).

Aegis, a Dentsu Inc. unit, didn’t pay share bonuses to Synovate staff to “artificially inflate” profits and gave a misleading account of customer contracts, Ipsos said in an April lawsuit released by the court this week. An investigation into fraud at Synovate’s Mexican business, accounting irregularities in Romania and tax probes in at least three countries also weren’t properly disclosed before the deal, Ipsos said.