Kraft has been censured by the City’s takeover watchdog for breaking a pledge to keep open a Cadbury factory when it won control of the Birmingham-based chocolate firm.

In its first public rebuke of a company for nearly three years, the Takeover Panel reprimanded the US food giant for promising to save the Somerdale factory in Bristol from closure when it “did not know” the details of how far advanced Cadbury was in shifting production from the plant to Poland  with the loss of 400 jobs.

Kraft announced that it would have to close the factory just seven days after clinching its £11.7 billion takeover of Cadbury.

The ruling has scuppered plans by the panel to appoint senior Lazard dealmaker Peter Kiernan as its next director general. His firm was the main financial adviser to Kraft and was responsible for advising it on the takeover code.

The panel said Lazard should have put pressure on Kraft to explain its belief on the factory plan.

Now Philip Remnant will continue as the panel’s director general after Mr Kiernan withdrew his candidacy.

Kraft’s conduct in the takeover struggle has already been criticised by the Business Select Committee, which urged the Government to monitor other undertakings such as pledges of no redundancies for two years.

But the panel said it accepted that Kraft held an “honest and genuine” belief that it could keep Somerdale operational. Jennie Formby, Unite union’s national officer for the food and drink sector, said: “While nothing can compensate our members at Somerdale for the shameful way in which they were treated by Kraft, the strong public criticism by the Takeover

Panel is a welcome vindication of the serious concerns that Unite raised repeatedly throughout the takeover process.

“What we need now is legislation to ensure that this can never happen again.”

Kraft has since announced plans to close its UK head office, moving its headquarters from Cheltenham  which employs around 400 staff  next year.

It plans to integrate its office network to the Bournville site in Birmingham and Uxbridge, north west London, which was the previous Cadbury head office.

The new Cadbury owner has also outlined plans to make Bournville the heart of its global chocolate research and development, creating a “centre of excellence” to drive new product development.

In a statement the panel ruled: “Kraft should not have made the statements in the form in which it did in circumstances where it did not know the details of Cadbury’s phased closure of Somerdale.”

While the decision to censure Kraft is unlikely to have much impact on the US foods group because it was not accompanied by a fine  highlighting the limits of the regulator’s reach  it could encourage UK politicians to press for more protection for UK companies involved in such takeovers.

Kraft general counsel Marc Firestone said: “We regret that, once we had full information, it was not feasible to keep Somerdale open, as we’d originally believed possible.”