Fresh questions emerged last night over Tony Blair’s relationship with Col Muammar Gaddafi and a Russian oligarch who sought a multi-billion dollar loan from Libya.
Oleg Deripaska spent £300,000 funding Mr Blair's organisation Photo: GETTY
By Robert Mendick and Edward Malnick
9:31PM BST 01 Oct 2011
Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia’s richest men, spent £300,000 co-funding a little known project run by Mr Blair, which lobbied governments over climate change.
Mr Deripaska’s support for Mr Blair’s organisation – Breaking the Climate Deadlock – came a few months before his company’s negotiations with the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) over a £3 billion financing deal. The deal was being brokered by JP Morgan, the US investment bank which pays Mr Blair £2 million a year as a senior adviser.
Contents of an email – disclosed in The Sunday Telegraph last week – showed how a secret visit by Mr Blair to Gaddafi in Jan 2009 was linked to the deal being put together by JP Morgan. In the end, the bank pulled out of the negotiations – a source said the Libyans were difficult to do business with – although the LIA subsequently bought about $300 million worth of shares in Mr Deripaska’s company Rusal.
Both JP Morgan and Mr Blair have insisted that the former prime minister was unaware of the negotiations. Mr Deripaska is a controversial figure who was once banned from entering America over alleged links with organised crime, which he denies.
His sale of two of his Russian plants to an American firm, Alcoa, was blamed for subsequent job losses in Alcoa’s UK operations. Breaking the Climate Deadlock was a joint venture between Mr Blair and a not-for-profit organisation
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The Climate Group, which was formed in 2004 with Mr Blair’s backing while he was still prime minister. Breaking the Climate Deadlock was started in December 2007, about six months after Mr Blair quit Downing Street.
Mr Deripaska, who is chief executive of Rusal, the world’s largest aluminium producer, is listed as one of three main supporters of Breaking the Climate Deadlock on The Climate Group’s website. No mention of Mr Deripaska is made on any of Mr Blair’s websites.
The Climate Group said last week that Mr Deripaska had never attended any of its events. Mr Deripaska, whose fortune was estimated at its peak at £17 billion, famously hosted a lunch party on his yacht in the summer of 2008 in Corfu, attended by Lord Mandelson and George Osborne.
“Yachtgate” led to a political storm over claims – vehemently denied – that Mr Osborne had tried to solicit a £50,000 donation for the Conservative party. Lord Mandelson, who at the time was EU Trade Commissioner, was forced to deny any conflict of interest over cuts to European aluminium import duties, of which Rusal was one of the main beneficiaries.
A Climate Group spokesman said last week: “Mr Deripaska was one of a number of contributors to the [Breaking the Climate Deadlock] project. Negotiations over funding were run directly between The Climate Group and Basic Element, Mr Deripaska’s investment group. Funding began early in 2008 to the amount of £300,000 and was publicly recognised in all project reports. Neither Mr Deripaska nor Basic Element have continued funding The Climate Group.”
In 2008 and 2009, Rusal was in financial difficulties, mired in its attempts to restructure about £4.5billion of debt owed to foreign banks. A vice-chairman at JP Morgan wrote to the LIA in Dec 2008 “to finalise the terms of the mandate concerning Rusal before Mr Blair’s visit to Tripoli which is scheduled to take place on around 22 January”.
A JP Morgan spokesman said Mr Blair was never made aware of the negotiations although the bank knew of Mr Blair’s travel plans. As revealed last week, Mr Blair made at least six private trips to meet Gaddafi in Libya after leaving office. On two occasions he was flown in and out of Tripoli on a private jet paid for by the dictator’s regime.
Mr Blair has been widely criticised for blurring the boundaries between his various business and charitable ventures, a claim he denies. He has also been accused of using contacts made in Downing Street to further his commercial worth. Mr Blair, whose fortune is estimated at £20million to £60million and who admitted last week he employed 150 staff, denies any conflict of interest.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said it was ''false innuendo’’ to suggest any link between JP Morgan’s attempt to arrange a loan between Libya and Rusal and Mr Deripaska’s funding of Breaking the Climate Deadlock. He added: “Mr Blair has no commercial, advisory or business relationship with Mr Deripaska or any of his companies. Neither Mr Blair or his staff have ever acted for Rusal, either directly or indirectly.”
A spokesman for Mr Deripaska refused to say if Mr Blair had ever met the oligarch. Mr Deripaska is a friend of Lord Mandelson, the former Business Secretary. There is no suggestion that Lord Mandelson is involved in any way with the oligarch’s dealings with Mr Blair or JP Morgan.
Mr Deripaska has been glowing in his admiration for Mr Blair. Breaking the Climate Deadlock has published three reports. Mr Deripaska said in a press release issued on the back of one of them – A Global Deal for our low Carbon Future: “This report is unquestionably a very important contribution Tony Blair is making to the post-Kyoto discussions.”
According to the Climate Group website, “Breaking the Climate Deadlock is a joint initiative of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and The Climate Group. Launched in March 2008, its objective is to help build support for an ambitious new global climate deal in Copenhagen in December 2009 and its subsequent implementation.
“Combining the high-level advocacy of Mr Blair, with a suite of expert reports, briefing papers and public engagement activities, the initiative has highlighted how a fair and effective global deal can be build [sic] and the benefits that it would provide.”
Breaking the Climate Deadlock was wound up in Dec 2009, although Mr Blair’s website continues to display its logo prominently on its front page.
Besides their mutual friendship with Lord Mandelson, there are other links between Mr Blair and Mr Deripaska. Philip Lader, the former US ambassador to London in the early years of Mr Blair’s premiership, sits on the board of Rusal while his wife Linda LeSourd Lader is a trustee of the American branch of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
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