Conservatives take £27,000 from loss-making Russian-owned company

Aquind, owned by a former Russian oil boss, is bankrolling Rishi Sunak despite making massive losses

Today there has - rightly - been a lot of focus on the Conservatives taking money from Frank Hester.

The latest Electoral Commission data, released this morning, show that the Tories received more than £5 million from Hester's Phoenix Partnership in January - bringing his total donations to over £15 million. 

Sunak's party even accepted £150,000 from the mega-donor on March 14 - days after the Guardian revealed that Hester had been accused of making racist comments about Labour’s Diane Abbot. 

But buried in the new filings are some interesting stories that seem to have been missed.... Nottingham Forest owner Sokratis Kominakis gave the Tories £100k in February; and, even more intriguing, the Conservatives accepted more than £27,000 from Aquind Ltd.

Aquind has strong ties to Russia, as this newsletter has previously reported. It was set up in the UK with the principal purpose of building a £1.1 billion electricity cable linking Britain and France. 

The Ministry of Defence has expressed "serious national security concerns" over the project.

Aquind’s public face is director Alexander Temerko, a Ukrainian-born bon viveur who ran a Russian arms company before becoming a senior executive for the energy business Yukos. 

Temerko, a prolific Tory donor in his own right, is said to count Boris Johnson among his friends and is an advisor to the influential Tufton Street outfit the Institute of Economic Affairs. 

Aquind’s ultimate owner is former Russian oil boss Viktor Fedotov, who is now a British citizen.

Aquind has given more than £500,000 to the Tories since 2019. Although then business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng blocked the superconductor project in 2022 - a move that prompted Aquind to take, and win, a High Court challenge to the decision - the company has kept on donating to the Conservatives.

In March, Aquind gave £12,000 to the Tories. The company also gave £10,000 to Tory constituency parties in the newly created seat of Buckingham and Bletchley and Mid Buckingham and £5,000 to the Ipswich Tory party.

Aquind, which is wholly owned by a Luxembourg-registered company called Aquind Energy Sarl, has never made a profit in the UK. It made a loss of more than £4.8 million in 2023.

The Electoral Commission has previously called for electoral law to be changed to prevent companies donating money that has not been made in the UK.

As Transparency International’s Steve Goodrich recently told this newsletter: “As a minimum, businesses should only be able to donate if they can cover these costs from profits generated in the UK within the last two years.” 

Democracy for Sale agrees. Is it right that loss-making, foreign-owned companies are allowed to funnel money into British politics with minimal oversight and accountability?

Whoever wins the general election, this loophole needs to be closed.