Ashley will face UK lawmakers if they visit Sports Direct first

Sports Direct's billionaire founder Mike Ashley has agreed to face British lawmakers' questions in parliament about the treatment of workers at his sportswear retailer, but only if they visit his headquarters first.

In March Parliament's Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Committee formally summoned Ashley to appear before it on June 7.

Ashley, however, refused to attend, saying the proposal was an abuse of parliamentary process.

He has now had a change of heart, though his attendance is conditional.

"We can confirm that Mike Ashley has agreed to attend Westminster (on June 7), provided that the committee members visit the Shirebrook premises in advance to see employment conditions and practices with their own eyes," a spokesman for the tycoon said.

Shirebrook, central England, is where Sports Direct is based and where it has its main warehouse.

A spokesman for the BIS committee said it had received a letter from Ashley offering his conditional acceptance to attend the evidence session in Parliament.

He said the committee would consider the letter at its meeting next Tuesday.

Parliament can in theory order a person's imprisonment for contempt, though its powers on such actions are untested in recent times, according to a government paper published in 2012.

Ashley is deputy chairman of Sports Direct, holding 55 percent of its equity, and also owns Newcastle United soccer club.

Sports Direct has rejected criticism that it effectively pays some warehouse staff at Shirebrook below the legal minimum wage.

Shares in Sports Direct, which has issued two profit warnings this year, have slumped 43 percent in 2016 and in March the company lost its place in Britain's blue-chip FTSE 100 index.