BBC chair Richard Sharp reportedly invested in an oligarch-linked crypto firm three years ago. According to The Guardian, Sharp invested in Atomyze throughout 2019. The company was founded by Vladimir Potanin, also known as Nickel King.
As part of a crackdown on a group of individuals within President Putin’s inner circle, Potanin was sanctioned by the UK government in June. He was deemed a target by the Foreign Office due to his “continued accumulating wealth while supporting Putin’s regime” and he was once considered Russia’s wealthiest man.
There is no explanation for how the Russian ended up doing business with Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker and Conservative party donor appointed as the chair of the BBC by Boris Johnson. ABCP GP Ltd, a Cayman Islands company, made Sharp’s previously unreported investment in Atomyze in 2019. Offshore tax havens such as the Cayman Islands publish limited financial information about business owners.
For two months, the future BBC chair was a director of Atomyze. Despite Sharp’s resignation, Swiss corporate filings show an individual who works for Sharp’s personal investment office remains on the board. As far as is known, Sharp has not violated any of the recently introduced sanctions by the UK government, which would prevent any further financial dealings with Potanin or his companies in the future.
According to a spokesperson for Sharp, he invested in a blind trust – an arrangement in which financial assets are managed by third parties in order to avoid conflicts of interest – after being hired by the then chancellor, Sunak, in May 2020 to serve as a Treasury advisor. Spokesperson added:
The arrangement was maintained after Sharp became chairman of the BBC. This blind trust has professionally managed the ABCP GP Ltd and Atomyze Switzerland interests with complete independence from Mr Sharp and at the trust’s sole discretion since its establishment. At the current time, the blind trust, and therefore Mr Sharp, have no financial or directorial interests in any businesses owned and controlled by Mr Potanin.
It has been reported that Sharp is interested in a range of emerging technology companies, according to a spokesperson for Sharp’s investment trust. A spokesperson for Sharp pointed out that no sanctions had been imposed on Potanin when Sharp made an investment in the company of the oligarch, which is governed by Swiss authorities.
