Under the current law of UK, overseas businessmen can contribute quite legitimately to the British politics by making donations through their UK-registered parties. The Times has recently discovered series of donations to the Tories party, in the amounts of £50,000 and £100,000, paid legally by UK companies which are probably controlled by offshore entities.
According to the Times publication, £100,000 was given by CVS Management, – the management consulting firm based in Hertfordshire but being a subsidiary of a British Virgin Islands-registered and Swiss-based investment management company Corvus Capital. The person who is guiding the BVI company is Andrew Regan, a financier who was cleared of stealing £2.4 million from the food company where he was chief executive, and who now lives in Switzerland. Last time he himself appeared on the electoral roll in 2004.
It was confirmed by the office of Mr Regan that he travelled from Geneva to attend one Conservative meeting. As the person controlling the BVI-based Corvus Capital, Mr Regan is one of offshore businessmen whose companies appear to be bankrolling Conservatives. Among other companies there are Markland Holdings (UK), as part of an organisation owned by two Irish property tycoons who gave £100,000 to the Tories; Sleepwell Hotels UK, owned by a trust in the Isle of Man; BSN Capital Partners, based in London and controlled by the Cayman Islands company hedge fund ; the British business Venson Automotive Solutions, which gave £50,000, and Swiss-based Star Reefers UK, which also gave £50,000 to the Conservatives, while having recorded £394,000 losses last year.
The Party funding by overseas companies has become publicly discussed after a letter to The Times from Nat Rotschild, concerning George Osborne and the Russian oligarch. Foreign donations were planned to have been abolished when Tony Blair introduced the antisleaze Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act in 2000, in accordance to which the parties became responsible by law for proving that they were sponsored only by eligible donors.