Tory MP paid £250,000 per year by firm founded by sanctioned Russian oligarchs
Tory MP paid £250,000 per year by firm founded by sanctioned Russian oligarchs
Sir Brandon Lewis will receive the eye-watering sum from LetterOne for working just 8 hours per week.
Back in October it was revealed Sir Brandon Lewis, the former chair of the Conservative party had accepted a paid role advising an investment firm founded and “significantly” owned by two sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
The firm in question is LetterOne, founded by billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven.
Brandon Lewis initially refused to confirm how much he would earn working for LetterOne - Until now.
On the 15 November, Parliament published the latest register of MP’s financial interests, revealing Lewis is set to earn a staggering “£250,000 per annum” as LetterOne’s new “Chair of the Advisory Council on Corporate Governance”.
Lewis, will be paid via Bergo Holdings Ltd, a company he incorporated in December 2022.
The latest declaration also confirmed that Sir Brandon will earn a quarter of a million pound for working just “8 hrs per week”.
According to the BBC, ‘It has been reported that Mr Fridman, one of Russia's richest men, and Mr Aven still hold 49% of the shares in LetterOne’.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which regulates second jobs taken by former ministers has imposed some conditions on Mr Lewis and he is banned from lobbying UK government officials on behalf of LetterOne for two years.
The Conservative Party continues to accept donations from Russian linked individuals. A recent Good Law Project investigation revealed that “since the start of the war with Ukraine in 2022, the Conservatives have accepted at least £243,000 from Russia-associated donors – including at least £61,000 flowing into Tory coffers in 2023 alone”.
Between 2019-2022 Sir Brandon Lewis accepted £64,500 in donations fron Lubov Chernukhin according to records published by the Electoral Commission.
Lubov Chernukhin is a huge donor to the Conservative party, she is a British and Russian citizen, and is married to Vladimir Chernukhin, a former deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin and former chairman of Russian state corporation VEB.RF, which remains sanctioned by the UK Government.