BBC in Row over Billionaire Lord Ashcroft doco

[David Guyatt]

Labour's nom-dom expenses crook-ster Lord goes straight.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8557201.stm

Labour peer to end non-dom status



Labour peer and donor Lord Paul will end his controversial "non-dom" status from the next tax year, he has said.

The billionaire steel magnate said he would pay UK tax on his overseas earnings to comply with new laws being introduced by the government.

The police have said they will not be investigating his expenses, he said.

The Tories have repeatedly highlighted Lord Paul's tax status in response to criticism of their deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft's non-dom status.

A measure to ban non-doms - who do not pay UK tax on overseas earnings - from sitting in Parliament was inserted into the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill with cross-party support.

'Will be qualifying'

The New Statesman reports Lord Paul as saying: "On the issue of taxation position of peers, of course it goes without saying that I'll be fully complying with the change of law which the government is bringing forward.

"I strongly support the government proposals in relation to the taxation status of peers and MPs and the membership of the House of Lords and the House of Commons."

He later told the Press Association: "I will be paying all the taxes. I will be qualifying to be in the House of Lords."

Indian-born steel magnate Lord Paul was ennobled in 1996 and appointed to the Privy Council last year.

Scotland Yard began examining his expenses at the end of last year, following allegations that he had nominated an Oxfordshire flat he had never stayed in as his main home, allowing him to claim tens of thousands of pounds for his London property.

Investigation

Lord Paul said the Metropolitan Police had told him he would not face any further action over allegations that he abused parliamentary expenses.

The Sub-Committee on Lords' Interests has now launched an investigation into Lord Paul's expenses arrangements, its spokesman said.

The process had been on hold while the police carried out their inquiries.

Last week, Conservative deputy chairman and major donor Lord Ashcroft revealed that he had remained a non-dom, despite pledging to become a "permanent resident" when he was awarded a peerage 10 years ago.

Lord Paul, who was recently made a privy councillor, has insisted it was "ridiculous" to compare his situation because he has always been open about his tax status.

Lord Ashcroft has said he accepts the forthcoming change to the rules on non-doms sitting in Parliament.

In a statement last week, the Tory peer said: "In his statement last week he said: "While the non-dom status will continue for many people in business or public life, David Cameron has said that anyone sitting in the legislature - Lords or Commons - must be treated as resident and domiciled in the UK for tax purposes. I agree with this change and expect to be sitting in the House of Lords for many years to come."

[Magda Hassan]

The billionaire steel magnate said he would pay UK tax on his overseas earnings to comply with new laws being introduced by the government.

I doubt he would be doing this unless there was a going to be a compensatory amount somewhere else for him.

In a statement last week, the Tory peer said: "In his statement last week he said: "While the non-dom status will continue for many people in business or public life, David Cameron has said that anyone sitting in the legislature - Lords or Commons - must be treated as resident and domiciled in the UK for tax purposes. I agree with this change and expect to be sitting in the House of Lords for many years to come."

Sounds like he has plans to change this later though. mokin:

[Jan Klimkowski]

The state of British democracy:

Ashcroft's lawyers silence 'Panorama'
By Andy McSmith and Stephen Foley in New York

The BBC has shelved a Panorama documentary about the business affairs of the Tory billionaire Lord Ashcroft, because of a threat of legal action.

The Corporation has received what one insider described as "several very heavy letters" from Lord Ashcroft's lawyers. There is now little or no prospect of the investigation being broadcast before the general election, if it goes out at all.

The hold-up will delight David Cameron's campaign team, who had been trying to pressure the BBC into delaying the programme until after the general election. But sources inside the Corporation firmly deny that political pressure played a part in keeping the programme off the air, attributing the delay solely to the risk of legal action.

The Tories are anxious to suppress more publicity about Lord Ashcroft's affairs after the outcry earlier this month when the Tory billionaire belatedly revealed that he is not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes, and so pays no tax on his huge overseas assets.

The revelation that Lord Ashcroft is a "non-dom" has prompted two separate committee hearings in Parliament into the circumstances under which he was awarded a peerage, both of which are being held today.

Panorama sent a team to Belize and to the Turks and Caicos Islands, where Lord Ashcroft has business interests, to interview businessmen and politicians. Those interviewed included the Prime Minister of Belize, Dean Barrow, a former ally turned critic of Lord Ashcroft; and Shaun Malcolm, a former chairman of the opposition in the Turks and Caicos. The team was led by James Oliver, an experienced BBC journalist.

Plans to broadcast the programme this month provoked furious protests from Conservative headquarters. Senior Tories fired off letters of protest to the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, and the chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons. They objected that it was unfair to broadcast a programme on such a sensitive topic in the run-up to a general election.

But neither the director-general nor the Trust has intervened to block the programme, sources inside the BBC insisted. One said: "If the programme doesn't go out before the general election, it has nothing to do with the Conservatives. It's to do with whether it's legally clearable." Another said: "Things take time when you are dealing with offshore finances. It's easy to jump to the conclusion that this is connected to the general election, but the main priority is to make sure the programme goes out in a form in which you are sure it is right. It's an amazingly difficult area."

A spokesman for Lord Ashcroft said it was "hardly a revelation" that the peer's lawyers had contacted the BBC over the Panorama programme. He added: "We shall watch this space."

Lord Ashcroft is taking legal action against The Independent over two reports on his business interests in the Turks and Caicos.

No one from Panorama was available for comment, but a BBC spokesman said: "The programme is not on the schedule at the moment. We do not know when it will be aired."

Michael Ashcroft is deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. He is also the party's biggest single financial backer, through his company Bearwood Corporate Services.

He was nominated for a peerage in 1999 by William Hague, who was then leader of the Conservative Party, but was rejected by the Honours Scrutiny Committee, because he lived abroad. The peerage was granted in 2000, after Mr Ashcroft gave Mr Hague a written promise that he would become a UK resident. For the next nine years, he refused to answer questions about whether he was a UK taxpayer, until his hand was forced by a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Labour MP Gordon Prentice. "It's very disappointing the BBC has pulled the plug on this programme. It's of immense public interest," Mr Prentice said yesterday.

The Commons Public Administration Committee will today hear evidence from Baroness Dean, a Labour peer who was a member of the scrutiny committee that first blocked and then approved Michael Ashcroft's peerage, and Sir Hayden Phillips, who was the senior civil servant involved. But the hearing has been weakened because the three Conservative members are refusing to take part.

A committee of the House of Lords that looks into members' interests will also meet today to consider a complaint from a Labour MP, Martin Linton, that Lord Ashcroft had failed to observe a rule that requires peers to act in their "personal honour".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pol...23210.html

[David Guyatt]

Doesn't his legal battle with the Indy date back to 2001?

I suppose we'll hear fairly soon if the film is spiked - just watch the internet. If there is a good chance it will be aired, then the team who made it will keep it tight, I would imagine.

[David Guyatt]

Wot a surprise...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100928/tuk...23e80.html

BBC pulls programme on Ashcroft

The BBC was forced to pull an edition of its Panorama programme about the financial affairs of controversial Tory backer Lord Ashcroft just hours before it was broadcast. Skip related content

RELATED PHOTOS / VIDEOS
BBC pulls programme on Ashcroft
Enlarge photo
The show - meant to have gone out on Monday night - was withdrawn after receiving a response earlier in the day to a question about a share interest transfer, the broadcaster said.

The BBC said the answer "shed new light" on the issue and it would be reviewing the programme.

Billionaire Lord Ashcroft helped to finance the Conservative election campaign.

He was dragged into a tax row earlier this year after confirming he had "non-dom" status and had not been paying UK income tax on his worldwide earnings.

Earlier this month it emerged he would be standing down as the party's deputy chairman.

Monday night's Panorama was replaced with another edition about UK military justice.

A BBC spokesman said: "We put a number of questions to Lord Ashcroft two weeks ago, including one relating to a share interest transfer.

"We asked for a response by Friday September 24. In a response received (on Monday) afternoon we have been given information that sheds new light on that issue and we will therefore review the programme."

[Magda Hassan]

Ashcroft bank in dispute over $10m Belize fund for poor people

Tory donor had bank control when four-year case began over refusal to return Hugo Chávez's gift to house poor

• Rajeev Syal and Owen Bowcott
  
• The Guardian, Thursday 16 June 2011 <li class="history">Article history Lord Ashcroft has close links with the Belize Bank, which is now in dispute over a $10m fund earmarked for the poor and homeless. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
  
  A bank with close links to Lord Ashcroft will be accused in a British courtroom of keeping $10m destined for social housing in a poor central American country, in a legal battle that could embarrass David Cameron's government.
  The Conservative party donor and newly appointed government defence adviser has been described as the guiding hand behind Belize Bank, which has fought a four-year legal battle with the Belize government to claim money allegedly earmarked for homeless people.
  The bank will on 29 June ask the Privy Council to overturn previous rulings in a dispute over a loan guarantee signed by a previous premier. Ashcroft owned or controlled the bank's holding company in 2007 when the dispute began. The case raises fresh questions over his influence in the central American democracy, weeks after Cameron's decision to give him a job as an adviser to the Ministry of Defence.
  Ashcroft last year eventually bowed to anger over his tax position and agreed to relinquish his non-domiciled status after allegations that the House of Lords and the British public had been misled.
  Lois Barrow-Young, the barrister representing a pressure group of Belize organisations, is due to appear before the council's judges to argue the money belongs to the state. She accused Ashcroft of being the guiding hand behind the bank's dispute with the government.
  "There is no doubt that he is a controlling hand behind the bank. We will continue to argue the money belongs to the Belizean people," she told the Guardian.
  Chris Bryant, the former Labour foreign office minister, said it was a disgrace that Cameron has appointed Ashcroft as an adviser. "The prime minister should not run scared of Ashcroft but should force him either to suspend this legal action or to step down."
  Two appeals by Belize Bank are scheduled to be heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on 29 June and a week later on 6 July. The committee sits in Westminster, and is the final court of appeal for Belize, a Commomwealth member and former British colony. Belize courts ruled the bank failed in its attempt to validate a $17bn loan supposedly guaranteed in 2007 by the previous government for financing a hospital. The judges found the money was not correctly authorised because payments of more than $5m require ratification by the national assembly; no vote was taken in relation to the Belize Bank loan.
  Around $10m at the centre of the dispute was a gift from Hugo Chávez's Venezuela in 2008 to Belize, where the Tory donor's multimillion-pound business empire is based. It was routed, via London, to the Belize Bank. The bank has previously argued it is entitled to keep the Venezuelan money as repayment towards the $17m debt guaranteed by former prime minister Said Musa. In 1998, Musa appointed Ashcroft as Belize's UN ambassador.
  Lawyers for the current Belize government have argued in court that Musa acted without authorisation from his national assembly. They said the Venezuelan money was meant to pay for housing for low-income families, and successfully argued before the Belize courts that the money belonged to the government.
  As part of their case, they are expected to claim that Chávez's administration issued a statement saying that the $10m was for "the construction of homes with the purpose of improving the quality of life of the Belizean people".
  Lawyers for Belize Bank are expected to argue that the appointment of lay members to an appeal board in Belize created a possiblity of bias, and that the guarantee signed by Musa should stand.
  Ashcroft, 65, spent part of his childhood in Belize. According to his autobiography, his business interests began in 1987 when he bought the Belize operation of the Royal Bank of Canada for $1 and renamed it Belize Bank.
  On 5 May this year, Ashcroft resigned from the board of BCB Holdings, the controlling company of Belize Bank, after holding a position on the board for 13 years. His post was taken over by his son Andrew. His website has a page dedicated to BCB Holdings where a photo of Belize Bank is displayed. In 2007, Ashcroft controlled or owned around 78% of the holding company. This figure had dropped to 74.7% two years later, according to its website.
  On 24 May, it was announced by Cameron that Ashcroft had been appointed to a key government advisory post despite objections from Nick Clegg. The former Tory deputy chairman will lead a review of the UK's military bases in Cyprus.
  Ashcroft has been the Conservative party's most generous donor over the last 20 years with gifts of more than £12m.
  A spokesman for Ashcroft declined to comment on allegations that he was influencing the bank, on his ownership of the bank or on the upcoming case. Solicitors for Belize Bank, Allen & Overy, also decined to comment.
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/...ouncil-row
  
  
  
  

[Jan Klimkowski]

Ashcroft and Mercer, eh?

A truly scary duo.

David Cameron gave a government advisory post to Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft despite objections from Nick Clegg, the BBC understands.

The peer and former Tory deputy chairman will lead a review of the UK's military bases in Cyprus.

But he has come under fire from Labour and Lib Dem MPs, including the deputy prime minister, over his tax status.

A source said Mr Clegg made it clear he was "not keen" on the appointment, but the prime minister chose to go ahead.

In a statement, Defence Secretary Liam Fox confirmed that Lord Ashcroft would undertake the role of senior independent advisor to the review of the Cyprus bases.

He will work alongside Conservative MP and former Army officer Patrick Mercer.

Source.

[Magda Hassan]

The mystery of Lord Ashcroft and the paradise island business empire

Fresh revelations have raised a series of questions about the links between the former Conservative deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft and a company responsible for luxury projects across a string of islands

• Jamie Doward
  
• The Observer, Sunday 5 February 2012
  

Lord Ashcroft insists he has had no interest in Johnston International since he sold it in 1999. Photograph: Steve Back / Rex Features

The company no longer exists and little is known about it in the Westminster village. Yet who controlled Johnston International, which won building contracts across the Caribbean worth tens of millions of pounds, has triggered awkward questions for the Tories, and above all for their major donor, Lord Ashcroft.
The Tory peer, who has given the party more than £10m, is spending a small fortune on lawyers and spin doctors to deal with inquiries about his relationship with Johnston, whose interests before it collapsed with debts of $30m stretched across Belize, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The company, and its relationship with politicians in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory, plays a central role in a libel action being brought by Ashcroft against the Independent newspaper.
A BBC Panorama investigation, broadcast last Monday, suggested that the Tories' former deputy chairman had misled the stock market about his links to the firm.
And now an investigation by a court-appointed liquidator into the relationship between Johnston's parent company, a plethora of interlinked companies and Ashcroft's British Caribbean Bank (BCB), is raising as many questions as it answers. Even MPs are taking an interest in an obscure company that only a few weeks ago they had never heard of.
Last Wednesday, at Prime Minister's Questions, the Labour MP Thomas Docherty asked: "Can the prime minister guarantee that Lord Ashcroft has now told the whole truth about his connections with the building company Johnston International, or is it yet again one rule for the prime minister's rich friends and another rule for everyone else?"
Johnston was already under scrutiny even before it collapsed in 2010, leaving its employees with unpaid wages.
A government inquiry examining allegations of systemic corruption in the Turks and Caicos Islands heard that the firm built Belview, a luxury waterfront mansion, for the islands' former premier, Michael Misick. The inquiry heard that to pay for his mansion, Misick, who was forced to resign in 2009 and is now battling multiple corruption allegations, all of which he denies, took out loans of almost $5m (£3.2m) from a Johnston subsidiary. The loans were then consolidated into a further loan taken out with BCB.
In 2009, at the end of the corruption inquiry, its chair, a former lord justice of appeal, Sir Robin Auld, published an official report that placed Johnston under further scrutiny.
Auld suggested that the awarding of "major construction contracts" on the islands could be a potential line of inquiry for the authorities including those "awarded to Johnston International for two new Turks and Caicos Islands hospitals, said to have been overpriced and awarded without any appropriate tender process with an initial budget of $40m and costs to date of $125m".
Auld was at pains to stress his inquiry had found no evidence to confirm any of the contracts were corrupt only that they might be worthy of investigation.
The contracts were awarded by a Canadian healthcare company, and lawyers for Ashcroft insist that Johnston had no direct contact with the islands' government over their allocation. Ashcroft has insisted that he has had no "economic, beneficial or legal interest" in Johnston since he sold it in 1999.
However, internal company documents obtained by Panorama show that Johnston's chief executive, Allan Forrest, regularly reported to Ashcroft. One fax from Forrest to Ashcroft read: "Dear Michael, a short note to thank you for the salary increase. Much appreciated." Another, written after Forrest visited Belize, where Ashcroft made much of his money, refers to Johnston's parent company, Oxford Ventures, an obscure business based in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. Forrest wrote: "The perception in Belize is that you are still in full control of Oxford's assets (which you are of course)."
There is a growing belief in the Turks and Caicos Islands that Helen Garlick, an experienced lawyer who is leading a special investigation and prosecution team in the islands, will seek to question Forrest, who was also director of Oxford Ventures when it went into administration at the same time as Johnston.
A forensic accountant, appointed by the British Virgin Islands' supreme court to trace Oxford's assets, said he would be seeking answers from the Ashcrofts in light of the Panorama investigation.
"I would like to talk to Lord Ashcroft," said Chris Johnson of insolvency experts CJA Associates Ltd. "We have seen the faxes [from Forrest to Ashcroft in the Panorama programme]. I would like to ask questions of anybody who has a relationship with Oxford in my duties as the official liquidator."
In what could prove a significant development, Johnson said last week that he had obtained a court order in the Turks and Caicos Islands allowing him to request documents held by Ashcroft's BCB banking empire relating to Oxford and its collapse.
"Legally, this enables me to seek information and to ask people for explanations," said Johnson, whose investigation is examining the role of another director of Oxford, an anonymous British Virgin Islands' firm called Northtown. The company is a former director of Bearwood Corporate Services, the business through which Ashcroft has donated millions to the Tories and which was investigated and cleared of making illegal payments to the party by the Electoral Commission.
An organisational chart obtained by the Observer suggests Oxford may be the ultimate parent company of as many as 40 businesses and that Northtown is the director of 20. The chart reveals Oxford Ventures' sprawling empire is byzantine, stretching across tax havens including the Cayman Islands, Belize and the British Virgin Islands to countries including Kuwait, the UK, Mexico and Canada.
Ashcroft's exact relationship with Johnston remains unclear. In 2010 the company told the Observer through its lawyers: "Lord Ashcroft has had no interest (whether legal, beneficial, economic or managerial) since 1999 when Johnston was the subject of a management buyout from a public company, which was disclosed fully."
Ashcroft's relationship with Johnston came under further scrutiny in court last week. The peer is pursuing a libel action against the Independent's former publisher for a series of stories examining how the company benefited from a property boom in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where the peer is a "Belonger", a citizen entitled to certain privileges. He has built a school on the island, donated to charity and is credited with delivering much-needed jobs.
David Price, defending the paper, said that "what is being stated" about Ashcroft is "that he funded this boom, he constructed this boom, through Johnston, knowing this boom was being created through systematic corruption".
Price continued: "He [Ashcroft] is not the corrupter. The corrupter is Michael Misick."
In a letter to the Observer, lawyers for Ashcroft, who is the founder of the Crimestoppers charity and has pledged £5m to the construction of a new yacht to be used by the royal family, declined the paper's request for him to clarify his involvement with Johnston.
However, his spokesman insisted Ashcroft had "no involvement" in Johnston's "day-to-day management and the implication that it remained his company is completely wrong".
The focus on Ashcroft's Caribbean business interests comes as the peer conducts a government review of UK military bases in Cyprus. Ashcroft, whose companies have provided private jet and helicopter flights to several Conservative cabinet members, including the prime minister, David Cameron, was given the role after renouncing his status as a "non-dom". The peer's shock admission before the last election that he was someone who did not have to pay UK tax on his overseas business interests prompted a furore and embarrassed Cameron.
Now, as politicians, lawyers and liquidators seek answers over Ashcroft's relationship with a collapsed Caribbean construction company, those same business interests are once again under acute scrutiny.

ASHCROFT CV

■ Born in Sussex in 1946, Michael Ashcroft was brought up in British Honduras, now Belize. His wealth is estimated at £1.3bn.
â–  Ashcroft was appointed Conservative party treasurer in 1998 by the then leader William Hague and remained in the role until 2001.
â–  In 2000 he was admitted to the Lords as a Conservative working peer after promising to become a permanent tax resident of the UK. In the same year he was knighted for public service to Belize.
â–  He was deputy chairman of the Conservative party from 2005 to 2010.

[Magda Hassan]

Belize Nears Default After Missing $23 Million Bond Payment


By Adam Williams - Aug 21, 2012 7:49 AM

Belize neared default after the Central American country missed a payment today on about $544 million of bonds and Finance Secretary Joseph Waight said the government is unlikely to pay during a 30-day grace period.
The government can't make today's $23 million bond payment, Waight said in a phone interview from Belmopan City. Prime Minister Dean Barrow, who won re-election in March, said a restructuring was needed after the coupon on the country's so- called superbond climbed to 8.5 percent this year from 6 percent as part of an accord reached with investors in 2007.
"We simply do not have the capacity to make the payment," Waight said. "We are hoping to engage with creditors as quickly as possible."
Barrow projected that Belize's fiscal deficit will climb to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product this year from 1.1 percent after growth in the $1.4 billion economy slowed and the government took over the telecommunications and electricity distribution companies.
The price of Belize's dollar bonds due in 2029 fell 0.25 cent to 34.75 cents on the dollar, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Grace Period

The majority of the country's bond holders have rejected three debt renegotiation scenarios published by the central bank on Aug. 8. Those scenarios include reduction of the 8.5 percent coupon to 2 percent with a 15-year principal grace period and a maturity date extension to 2062 from 2029. Other scenarios call for a 45 percent principal reduction with incremental coupon adjustments, or a 5-year principal grace period with a 3.5 percent coupon.
"By not paying the coupon, the government is trying to force bond holders into an exchange that will get investors pennies on the dollar," said Joe Kogan, head of emerging-market debt strategy at Scotia Capital Markets in New York. Kogan described Belize's proposal in an Aug. 8 report as "one of the worst restructurings for bondholders in recent emerging markets history."
Belize has hired New York-based law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP to advise the government on the restructuring, Waight said. Cleary Gottlieb aided Argentina in its debt restructurings following the country's default on $95 billion of bonds in 2001.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-20...ys-1-.html