{"id":128079,"date":"2014-07-04T18:25:25","date_gmt":"2014-07-04T18:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=128079"},"modified":"2014-07-04T18:25:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T18:25:25","slug":"questions-tory-donation-linked-banker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/questions-tory-donation-linked-banker\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions over Tory donation linked to banker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melanie Newman and Tom Warren<\/em><\/p>\n

The Conservative\u00a0Party\u00a0are refusing to confirm whether a Russian banker was behind a\u00a0\u00a340,000 purchase of a portrait of Margaret Thatcher auctioned at the Party\u2019s 2013 summer fundraiser.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andrei Borodin<\/a>, former President of the Bank of Moscow, was granted asylum four months before the June event after\u00a0convincing<\/a>\u00a0a British judge that charges of \u2018aggravated swindling<\/a>\u2018\u00a0filed against him in Russia were politically motivated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Details\u00a0<\/a>of the 2013 summer party at Old Billingsgate, where the picture\u00a0was auctioned off, were revealed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism earlier this week. They showed that Borodin\u00a0and his wife, model Tatiana Korsakova, sat at\u00a0Boris Johnson\u2019s table.<\/span><\/p>\n

Electoral Commission records suggest that the black and white Thatcher portrait may have been\u00a0bought by Henley Concierge Ltd, a business registered to a cottage on Borodin\u2019s \u00a3120m country estate, Park Place, near Henley-on-Thames.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time the\u00a0company, which was only set up in November 2012 and is currently described on Companies House as \u2018non-trading\u2019, was owned and run by Borodin\u2019s personal assistant and estate manager, Mario Hinterdorfer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hinterdorfer is understood to have left Borodin\u2019s employment in October 2013, returning to Austria. At the same time he resigned from Henley Concierge and transferred his shareholding to a new estate manager.<\/span><\/p>\n

Borodin has confirmed that he attended last year\u2019s party. But he says: \u2018I participated in no conversation on policy or party funding issues nor did I make any donation at the event.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Both he and Hinterdorfer have not responded to\u00a0questions about either Henley Concierge or\u00a0the Thatcher portrait.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related story:\u00a0Russian front: Cameron\u2019s encounter with Putin friend at Tory party<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Borodin, Korsakova and Hinterdorfer would have\u00a0needed to be\u00a0on the electoral roll in the UK in order to be eligible to personally buy the picture, which qualifies as a political donation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Political party treasurers are required to check the true source of a donation and, in the case of corporate donors, to satisfy themselves that companies are genuinely carrying on business in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rules<\/a>\u00a0on declaring donations require the cost of the item put up for auction to be separated from the price paid by the successful bidder.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Thatcher portrait was painted by fine artist Darren Baker, whose\u00a0<\/span>website<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>reads<\/span>: \u2018<\/span>When this fantastic portrait went to auction at the\u00a0Conservative Party\u2018s\u00a0summer ball\u00a0on Monday 24th June, after a frenzy of bidding, the lucky winner snatched up Darren\u2019s piece of art for an astonishing \u00a340,000!\u2019<\/p>\n

The rules further state that: \u2018If the successful bidder pays more than the market price of the item or service; the donation element is the difference between the price paid by the buyer and the value of the prize.\u2019<\/p>\n

Electoral Commission records show the value of the portrait was registered as\u00a0\u00a312,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The balance to be declared in relation to the the portrait sale was therefore \u00a328,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only 2013 donation to the Conservative party of that sum was accepted from Henley Concierge Ltd on July 3 last year, just nine days after the fundraiser.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bureau\u00a0asked the Conservative Party what checks it made\u00a0to establish that the company was genuinely trading in the UK, given that it had not filed account. The Bureau also asked the party what it had done to establish the company was not acting as an agent for Borodin.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Conservative Party spokesman said: \u00a0\u2018All donations to the Conservative Party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, published by them, and comply fully with Electoral Commission rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018With regards to this specific donation, the Party fully complied with the Electoral Commission guidance with regards to the permissibility of the donor.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The Party did not respond to questions about whether Borodin, his wife or Hinterdorfer might have won the auction for the Thatcher portrait.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday the Bureau\u00a0revealed\u00a0<\/a>that Lubov Chernukhin, the banker wife of a former minister in Vladimir Putin\u2019s government, had paid \u00a3160,000 for the chance to play tennis with David Cameron and Boris Johnson.<\/span><\/p>\n

She won the prize at an auction\u00a0held at this year\u2019s Conservative summer ball, which took place\u00a0on Wednesday at the Hurlingham Club in west London.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lubov\u00a0Chernukhin and her husband Vladimir both attended the event.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Electoral Commission rules on donations to political parties<\/a><\/h4>\n

Political parties are given 30 days by the Electoral Commission to check whether a donor is permissible before accepting or declining a gift.<\/span><\/p>\n

Party treasurers are given a copy of the electoral register and are expected to check that companies donating are registered at Companies House and that they are carrying out business in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

An\u00a0individual or organisation may act\u00a0as an agent in facilitating a donation to a party\u00a0–\u00a0for example where a donor transfers a donation to an agent, who then transfers the donation to the party.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0agent must then provide the party with the details of the donor so that the party can check if the donor is permissible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Transferring a donation to an agent rather than directly to a party must not be used as an attempt to evade the controls on permissibility and transparency,\u2019 the rules say.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece<\/em><\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melanie Newman and Tom Warren The Conservative\u00a0Party\u00a0are refusing to confirm whether a Russian banker was behind a\u00a0\u00a340,000 purchase of a portrait of Margaret Thatcher auctioned at the Party\u2019s 2013 summer fundraiser. Andrei Borodin, former President of the Bank of Moscow, was granted asylum four months before the June event after\u00a0convincing\u00a0a British judge that charges of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-128079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}