Cox Paid £93,000 By Sanctioned Oligarchs' Company

Former UK Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, a serving Conservative MP, was paid £93,000 for legal services provided to ABH Holdings S.A., a Luxembourg-based company. The shareholders of this firm include Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, two Russian oligarchs currently under UK sanctions. Cox declared 62 hours of work for ABH Holdings S.A. since December last year in the UK parliament’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

This payment comes despite Fridman and Aven being placed on the UK Sanctions List in March 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Their roles at ABH Holding were explicitly cited as reasons for their inclusion, with the UK government deeming the company an “entity carrying on business in a sector of strategic significance to the Government of Russia, namely the Russian financial services sector.” Their involvement in the Russian banking giant Alfa Group was also referenced in the official sanctioning reasoning.

Neither Cox nor ABH Holdings provided comment to POLITICO regarding the arrangement. While there is no suggestion of wrongdoing in Cox’s decision to provide services, as the firm is entitled to legal representation, the optics are clear. The oligarchs remain under EU sanctions despite a successful legal challenge in April 2024, which only covered a specific period and did not lift current restrictions. Fridman has also launched multiple legal challenges against European governments, including a €16 billion case against Luxembourg and several against Ukraine, using Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS).

For ordinary British people, this situation highlights the ongoing debate about MPs holding lucrative external roles, particularly when those roles involve entities connected to individuals sanctioned by the UK government. It raises questions about the perceived integrity of Parliament and the potential for conflicts of interest, even if not legally defined as such. The fact that a former chief legal counsel to the UK government is advising a company linked to sanctioned individuals could be seen as undermining the UK's own foreign policy measures.

This is not the first time Cox has faced scrutiny for his legal work while serving as an MP. In 2021, reports emerged that he had spent a month in the Caribbean representing the government of the British Virgin Isles in a corruption case, a situation that drew significant criticism. Furthermore, Cox is currently representing investors suing the UK government via the ISDS process in an abandoned coal mine project in Cumbria, one of the first known uses of this arbitration against the UK since 2006. Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister Chris Bryant revealed last November that Fridman himself has raised an ISDS case against the UK, though details are not public.

The Register of Members’ Financial Interests does not disclose the specifics of the legal advice provided by Cox, nor does it confirm if it is connected to Fridman’s ISDS case against the UK. The next step will likely be continued public and parliamentary scrutiny of MPs' outside earnings and the rules governing such arrangements, particularly concerning sanctioned entities or individuals.