Ikea recalls high chairs on safety fears

LONDON (Reuters) - Furniture retailer Ikea is recalling almost 1,000 baby highchairs in Britain because of safety fears.

The Swedish giant, the world's largest furniture retailer, said 930 "Gulliver" highchairs sold in its 17 stores across the country in January and February were being recalled.

A spokesman said the product was also being recalled in almost two dozen countries throughout Europe.

He said in a statement that while no accidents had occurred, the company had acted after a customer complaint in Germany.

"(An) investigation traced the cause of the problem to human error affecting a few production weeks only," he said. "Measures have been implemented to secure future deliveries."

He said the complaint centred on the crotch restraint, which prevents a child from slipping out of the chair, that the customer had said came loose after assembly.

* Ikea's Swedish founder Ingvar Kamprad, was listed as the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes magazine this week. He was said to be worth an estimated $31 billion dollars (15.4 billion pounds)

(Reporting by Andrew Hough; Editing by Stephen Addison)