2013 horse meat scandal situation. The Food Standards Agency's (FSA) chief executive, Catherine Brown also said "it is unlikely we will ever know" how many unwittingly ate horsemeat. Tesco's market value dropped by . European Union officials, European ministers and Commissioner (Tonio) Borg set up an urgent meeting in Brussels on 13 February 2013 on how to contain the horse meat scandal that exposed flaws in European control systems on food safety, and to formulate an action plan. Following the meeting, EU agriculture ministers announced a three-month programme of DNA testing of processed meat across the European Union. The plan calls for 2,500 random
Criticism of Tesco Siratranont faced up to two years in jail and a £16.4m libel damages claim for saying that Tesco was expanding aggressively at the expense of small local retailers. Tesco served him with writs for criminal defamation and civil libel. The case was subsequently dismissed. In Thailand another controversy arose when the Royal Thai Police alleged that Thai soldiers operating as Tesco security intimidated a rural boy into poisoning chocolates as revenge for having their contracts revoked by the company. In a branch of Tesco near the bridge over the river Kwai, Tesco staff strip searched a young Thai girl twice