Truss’s ex-chief of staff lobbying for sanctioned Russian oligarchs' firm

Exclusive: Mark Fullbrook has been lobbying for LetterOne. The Russian-owned investment group also employs a Labour peer and an ex-Tory chairman

Mark Fullbrook, who served as Liz Truss’s chief of staff during her 49-day prime ministership, has been lobbying for a company part-owned by two sanctioned Russian oligarchs.

Fullbrook Strategies has been working for the London-based investment group LetterOne, according to a company spokesperson and documents filed with the lobbying registry.

Fullbrook has been registered as a lobbyist for LetterOne since October 2023, which means he can approach ministers and senior civil servants on the firm’s behalf.

LetterOne’s founders, Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, were both sanctioned by the U.K. in March 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine the previous month. Truss was foreign secretary at the time, and announced the sanctions.  

The U.K. sanctions authority called Aven a “pro-Kremlin oligarch,” and noted his directorship of Alfa-Bank, Russia’s fourth-largest financial institution. Fridman was sanctioned for his involvement in Alfa-Bank and its related companies.

Aven and Fridman were both based in the UK for a number of years but have left since the Ukraine invasion. Together the pair own just under 50 percent of LetterOne, although the company itself is not sanctioned, and they don’t receive any profits.  

“They cannot exert any control or influence over the business. Their shares and their voting rights are frozen, and they cannot receive dividends,” LetterOne spokesperson Joshua Hardie said in an email.

He added that auditors have ensured that Aven and Fridman have no involvement in company affairs and derive no benefit, as have regulators in the U.K., U.S., and Luxembourg, where LetterOne Holdings S.A. is registered.

“This is the very reason why L1 is not sanctioned,” Hardie said.

According to documents filed with the lobbying registry, Fullbrook is working with LTS Advisory Ltd, a LetterOne subsidiary.

Fullbrook Strategies did not respond to a request for comment, and Hardie did not say what work the lobby group might have done with LTS Advisory.

Hardie said Fullbrook worked on a “short” project with LetterOne in 2023, adding that “this year they have only provided a news clipping service for us and there are no plans to change that.”

Hardie declined to describe the 2023 project, and said he didn’t know why Fullbrook would still be registered as a lobbyist even though he is not required to do so simply for providing news clippings.

“As to why Fullbrook Strategies are still registered as lobbying for us, I cannot comment,” Hardie said.

LetterOne has about 120,000 employees and a portfolio that includes the health food chain Holland & Barrett, as well as a stake in Veon, a Netherlands-based telecommunications group.

Earlier this month, LetterOne acquired 15 percent of Harbour Energy PLC, the North Sea's biggest oil producer. The move sparked controversy, with calls for Labour to act to prevent oligarchs owning such a valuable national asset.

The head of LetterOne is Lord Mervyn Davies, a former Labour Party trade minister who took control after Fridman and Aven stepped down from the board of directors following Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Davies was paid $40million by LetterOne in 2021 and 2022.

The Tories have also come under fire for their ties to LetterOne.

Last year, the Mirror reported that Conservative member of parliament Brandon Lewis was “raking in £250,000-a-year by moonlighting for a firm part-owned by two sanctioned Russian oligarchs.” Lewis now chairs LetterOne’s advisory board.

Fullbrook himself is a veteran of British politics. A former deputy head of campaigning for the Conservative party under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, he was a partner at Australian spin doctor Lynton Crosby’s CT Group for more than a decade before leaving in May 2022. 

Fullbrook’s wife, Lorraine, a former Conservative MP, was elevated to the House of Lords by Boris Johnson in 2020.

“We need to slam shut the revolving door between our politics and the lobbying industry,” said Labour MP Joe Powell, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Anti-Corruption & Responsible Tax.

"We in the U.K. need to take a cold hard look at ourselves,” he said.

A version of this story also appeared on the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.