Tory party returns impermissible donation linked to Russian banker
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Version 0 of 1. The Conservative party has handed back a £28,000 donation from a company believed to be associated with an exiled Russian banker which the Electoral Commission has ruled is an impermissible donor. Conservative central office accepted the sum from a company called Henley Concierge Limited following the auction of a portrait of Margaret Thatcher by the artist Darren Baker at the party’s 2013 summer fundraising ball. The Electoral Commission said on Tuesday that it was not satisfied that the company was carrying on business in the UK at the time the donation was made and that it had not filed any recent accounts with Companies House. Labour described the forfeited donation as “deeply embarrassing and serious”. At the time of the donation Henley Concierge Limited’s directors included Mario Hinterdorfer, the personal assistant of Andrei Borodin, a Russian banker who fled to the UK from Russia three years ago where he was wanted by the Kremlin to face charges for an alleged £220m bank fraud. Borodin has described the case as “a politically-motivated witch hunt”. The company is registered to a property on Borodin’s £120m country estate near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Borodin, who was granted political asylum in the UK in early 2013, was a guest at the 2013 summer ball. He has previously made clear that he personally made no donations at the event. Asked who was behind the company’s failed donation, a Conservative party spokesman said: “I don’t know”. “Under the law, political parties and their accounting units must not accept a donation unless it comes from a permissible donor,” the Electoral Commission said in a statement. “A company is deemed a permissible donor if it is registered at Companies House and carries on business in the UK. The commission considered there was sufficient doubt about the donor to open a case review to establish whether in fact the donor was permissible. During the course of the case review and following its own checks, the commission raised concerns with the Conservative party about the permissibility of the donor. Following these discussions, the party has forfeited the full amount of the donation.” A spokesman for the Tory party denied any impropriety in accepting the donation and said: “Before accepting the donation in July 2013 the Conservative party fully followed the law and Electoral Commission guidance. The donor’s late filing of accounts caused the party to review the permissibility of the donor. Due to the current uncertainty about the permissibility of the donation the party considered the most appropriate course of action in all the circumstances was to voluntarily forfeit it.” Sheila Gilmore, Labour MP for Edinburgh East, said the Conservative party should have ensured their fundraising activities were in accordance with the guidelines. “This raises serious questions over the Tory party’s funding,” she said. “The Tories should make clear who solicited this donation, who decided it should be registered this way and publish details of their contacts with Andrei Borodin. People will also want assurances that this is the only example of a donation of this kind having been arranged. The Tories’ re-election campaign is bankrolled by a dwindling group of elite donors, but, after this and reports of lavish dinners, we need more transparency over Tory funding.” |