AQUIND owner is no longer 'anonymous'
Viktor Fedotov has waived his right to anonymity after three years—having never really been anonymous—making a mockery of transparency legislation
Why a Russian oil tycoon was ever granted the privilege of total anonymity by Companies House, is a question to which we may never truly know the answer.
Viktor Fedotov, 73, has been the owner of Aquind Limited since at least March 2019, but he managed to secure full protection of his identity through a rarely awarded legal exemption.
In 2016, the government introduced legislation forcing all companies to publicly identify any owners with a controlling stake: persons with significant control (PSC):1
The Government appreciates that transparency is usually in the public interest, as it is useful to know with whom one is doing business and helps deter and identify where corporate entities are being used for criminal activities.
The Government recognises that in certain rare circumstances publication of PSC information could put individuals at serious risk of violence or intimidation.
They included a clause—section 790ZG—that would provide the possibility for exemption in rare cases. It was written with two specific types of company in mind, on the basis that they often attract the wrath of activists: weapons manufacturers and companies that conduct animal testing.
Regardless of the company’s industry, the clause was intended to be applied to any circumstances in which—for whatever reasons—a company’s director or PSC, or someone they live with, could reasonably expect to be endangered by their public identification.
Ordinarily, directors and PSCs of all companies must declare their residential address, a correspondence address (often the company’s registered office), their full name, their date of birth and other less personal information.
Most of this information will be listed on the public register (i.e. Companies House website), but their residential address and full date of birth are shared only with “specified public authorities and credit reference agencies (CRAs)”.2
Section 790ZG enables someone to apply for protection such that none of this information is publicly listed or shared with CRAs (although it is still shared with the ‘specified public authorities’).
To be successful, an application must include “evidence which supports the basis upon which the application is made”. According to guidance documents published when the legislation was introduced, examples might include3
“a police incident number if a previous attack has occurred”
“documentary evidence of a threat or attack”
“evidence of disruption, violence, intimidation or other targeting [by] activists“
Companies House will then “seek an assessment of the nature and extent of the risk” by a relevant authority (e.g. police and/or security services) to help them make a decision.
When the Times first publicised Fedotov’s identity as owner, in August 2020, they reported that persons associated with only 150 companies had been granted protection under the legislation—including Fedotov’s Aquind.4 They added:
The Times understands that security and law enforcement agencies have no concerns that Mr Fedotov is “at risk”.
Fedotov and Temerko go 50:50
In March, the Guardian reported that Alexander Temerko, longtime friend of (and heavyweight donor to) the governing Conservative party, had acquired 50% effective ownership of Aquind—a company with which he has been associated since its creation in 2008.5
The acquisition was discovered via the Luxembourg Trade and Companies Register (Registre de commerce et des sociétés – RCS), where Fedotov’s holding company AQUIND Energy is registered. AQUIND Energy has owned 100% of the UK-registered Aquind Limited since 26 March 2019.
In turn, AQUIND Energy was 100% owned by Fedotov until January this year, when 50% of its shares were transferred to another company registered in Luxembourg—Energy Stream Investments—which is 100% owned by Temerko.
A week after the Guardian’s report, a form was filed with Companies House to register a ‘change of details of individual person with significant control (PSC)’. We can only presume it relates to Temerko’s 50% acquisition, since the entire form is redacted.
The problem with that is: Temerko is not covered by the Section 790ZG exemption; only Fedotov is. So I wrote to Companies House and asked them what was going on here; why did Temerko now also appear to be protected?
After weeks and weeks of delay, on 7 May, a new filing appeared online: ‘Notification of Alexander Temerko as a person with significant control on 26 January 2021’. A few days later, 13 May, another one: ‘Change of details for Mr Victor Mikhailovich Fedotov as a person with significant control on 28 April 2021’.
This is the first time Fedotov’s name has been publicly declared—in relation to Aquind—on Companies House. Likewise, it’s the first time Temerko has been officially listed as an owner, despite it long being known that he part-owned the OGN Group.
Yesterday, finally, I received something by way of explanation from Companies House:
Protection ceases to have effect when a person to whom the protection relates, or that person’s representative, notifies Companies House of their wishes in writing.
Which means that Fedotov or his representative informed Companies House that he no longer requires protection.
The question that remains is: why was he ever granted protection at all?
When anonymity isn’t anonymous at all
Fedotov’s details had been protected since 26 March 2019, the same day his Luxembourg company AQUIND Energy first acquired 100% ownership of the UK company that has, to date, donated £433,765 to the Conservative party.6
One doesn’t need a wild imagination to think of a reason that an emigrant Russian oligarch may have cause to fear for their safety: there are abundant examples of successful assassinations, failed attempts and otherwise suspicious deaths.7
The reason this particular instance is so bizarre is that—for anyone who looked hard enough—none of the details that Fedotov’s protection ‘hid’ have ever really been hidden.
As I’ve previously reported with Franz Wild—the editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Enablers project—Fedotov’s business partnership with Temerko dates back to July 2008, when he joined the ex-Yukos man on the SLP Engineering board.8
SLP Engineering (SLPE) was a construction company in Lowestoft, which built oil platforms for the offshore (drilling) industry and was originally founded in 1967.
When Fedotov became a director of SLPE, an individual or group—whose identity was permanently hidden through a chain of offshore companies with opaque ownership structures—was in the process of completing its takeover.
During that process another entity, SLP Production, was set up to become the domestic parent organisation for a new group of companies, including the one that would later be renamed Aquind Limited. In September 2008, Fedotov also joined Temerko on the board of SLP Production.9
Almost all of the information that Fedotov sought to hide via Section 790ZG—including his full date of birth and the Hampshire address at which he still resides—have for more than a decade been publicly listed in the official records of two companies that were, for most of its existence, directly connected to Aquind.
The only remaining information that could be hidden was his acquisition of the company in March 2019—a fact that was revealed by the Times in August 2020.
However, that information has been publicly available since April 2019—just days after Fedotov’s protection came into effect—when Aquind’s financial statements for the year ending 30 June 2018 were published on Companies House.10
On the first page of that report, under the heading ‘Subsequent events’, it states:
Subsequent to the year end, on 15 February 2019, 100% shares of the Company were sold to Aquind Energy SARL, a company registered in Luxembourg, and the transaction has been registered with the UK tax authorities.
From there, anybody who wanted to could have paid a small fee to the Luxembourg RCS to learn that AQUIND Energy was owned by Victor Mikhailovich Fedotov, a British citizen with the same month and year of birth as the Viktor (with a k) Fedotov who had been a director of its former parent company, SLP Production, a decade earlier.
I don’t doubt Companies House had good reason to accept Fedotov’s application for protection, but the protection given was rather inadequate: if anyone had a serious ambition to harm him (or someone he lives with) they wouldn’t have had to look very hard to find his ‘protected’ information.
In effect, this application of Section 790ZG brought the worst of both worlds in that it failed to properly protect Mr Fedotov’s particulars, while still obscuring—from less diligent observers—his ownership of a politically-influential company, which may soon supply 5% of our country’s electricity.11
Given the continual drip of disclosures about Aquind’s political lobbying,12 and the waterfall of revelations about naked corruption in the awarding of contracts throughout the pandemic,13 this failed application of legislation—which was introduced to tackle money laundering and prevent corruption—is further evidence of the need for radical reform.14
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe, 2016. Transparency About Who Controls UK Companies, Statement made on 26 January 2016, Statement UIN HLWS478. [online] UK Parliament. Available at: <https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2016-01-26/HLWS478> [Accessed 5 June 2021].
Companies House, 2016. Restricting the disclosure of your address. [online] Companies House. Available at: <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/514238/Protection_regime_company_guidance.pdf> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Ibid.
Midolo, E., Greenwood, G., Parfitt, T. and O’Neill, S., 2020. Revealed: Viktor Fedotov is tycoon behind Aquind energy project. [online] Times. Available at: <https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-viktor-fedotov-is-tycoon-behind-aquind-energy-project-pq0868vmj> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Ambrose, J. and Davies, H., 2021. Tory donor takes control of firm seeking UK approval to build cross-Channel cable. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/10/tory-donor-uk-approval-cross-channel-cable-portsmouth-alexander-temerko> [Accessed 20 May 2021].
The Electoral Commission, n.d. [online] Available at: <http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Blake, H., Warren, T., Holmes, R., Leopold, J., Bradley, J. and Campbell, A., 2021. From Russia With Blood. [online] BuzzFeed. Available at: <https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Elliot, P. and Wild, F., 2021. Owner of Tory donor company chaired firm linked to Russian corruption allegations. [online] The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Available at: <https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021-01-12/owner-of-tory-donor-company-chaired-firm-linked-to-russian-corruption-allegations> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Companies House, n.d. Viktor Mikhailovich FEDOTOV. [online] Available at: <https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/tGRklIacOPD5rKuHKBVk39E_1ys/appointments> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Aquind Limited, 2019. Full accounts made up to 30 June 2018. Available at: <https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06681477> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Elliot, P. and Wild, F., 2020. Major Donor to Britain’s Conservative Party Linked to Russian Corruption Scandal. [online] The Daily Beast. Available at: <https://www.thedailybeast.com/viktor-fedotov-major-conservative-party-donor-linked-to-russian-corruption-scandal> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Ambrose, J., 2021. Calls for ministers to ‘come clean’ over links to cross-Channel power cable sponsor. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/27/calls-for-ministers-to-come-clean-over-links-to-cross-channel-power-cable-sponsor> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Transparency International UK. 2021. Concern over corruption red flags in 20% of UK's PPE procurement. [online] Available at: <https://www.transparency.org.uk/track-and-trace-uk-PPE-procurement-corruption-risk-VIP-lane> [Accessed 21 May 2021].
Bullough, O., 2021. What links cybercrime, terrorism and illegal trade? Dark money. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/18/cyber-crime-terrorism-illegal-trade-dark-money-uk-fraud-queens-speech> [Accessed 21 May 2021].