Londongrad

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pages: 471 words: 127,852

Londongrad: From Russia With Cash; The Inside Story of the Oligarchs by Mark Hollingsworth, Stewart Lansley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bob Geldof, Bullingdon Club, business intelligence, company town, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, corporate raider, credit crunch, crony capitalism, Donald Trump, energy security, Etonian, F. W. de Klerk, Global Witness, income inequality, kremlinology, Larry Ellison, Londongrad, mass immigration, mega-rich, Mikhail Gorbachev, offshore financial centre, paper trading, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, power law, rent-seeking, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Sloane Ranger

The following month Kay’s relationship with Patarkatsishvili was cemented when he set up Bili SA, a Luxembourg-registered company that managed some of the billionaire’s assets, notably his private jet. Kay’s newly glamorous wife Sophia loved London and frequented the nearby Harry’s Bar restaurant on South Audley Street. The couple were desperate to become players in the Londongrad community, and their dream came true on 27 December 2001 when Kay was granted an investor’s visa, requiring him to deposit at least £1 million in the UK, three-quarters of it in government securities. He is just one of a number of rich Russian émigrés to have taken advantage of the scheme that provides unique residential rights.

In June 2002 Andrei Melnichenko, a young Russian banker, paid £2.95 million for a three-bedroom penthouse apartment in Berkeley Square, previously lived in by Christian Candy himself. Dominated by extravagant marble surfaces, the oligarch installed his young Russian girlfriend into the property. The brothers even started to emulate the lifestyles of their Londongrad clients, buying their own £10 million second-hand yacht, Candyscape, joining the private jet set, and moving to Monte Carlo. Like many of their clients, the brothers’ business is based in a complex offshore structure. Gradually, Berezovsky integrated himself into the British way of life. He bought property in the right areas, hired some of the most powerful law firms in the country, and even, in December 2003, spoke at that most respected of London institutions, the Reform Club.

But the most conspicuous arrivals were the second wave, beginning to arrive in 1993 to 1994 - a group dubbed the ‘New Russians’ by their countrymen: those making money out of Yeltsin’s reforms, though not nearly on the scale of the oligarchs. London was the place they could ‘burn’ the money they had filtered out of Russia, sometimes in cash, sometimes via offshore companies. It was a group that sowed the first seeds of the spending frenzy that was later to typify Londongrad’s super-rich community, although to a greater extreme in the years to come. One Russian who knew some of them well was Alexander Nekrassov. He had come to London in 1989 as a reporter for Tass, the Russian news agency, and remembers being able to cash in himself by virtue of his good English and knowledge of Britain.


pages: 319 words: 89,192

Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies by Barry Meier

Airbnb, business intelligence, citizen journalism, Citizen Lab, commoditize, coronavirus, corporate raider, COVID-19, digital map, disinformation, Donald Trump, fake news, false flag, forensic accounting, global pandemic, Global Witness, index card, Jeffrey Epstein, Julian Assange, Londongrad, medical malpractice, NSO Group, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Ponzi scheme, Ronald Reagan, Russian election interference, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, WikiLeaks

MARK HOLLINGSWORTH FREELANCED FOR The Guardian, the Financial Times, and other British newspapers, writing articles about oligarchs, corporate chicanery, and corrupt politicians. He consulted with the British Broadcasting Corporation on investigative pieces and authored several books, including one titled Londongrad, which chronicled that city’s invasion by wealthy businessmen from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Then, his life as a journalist and a private operative began to join with the fortunes of a company that had mines in Kazakhstan and Africa. And in following years, his interactions with that company would offer a guided tour of every compromised corner of the corporate investigations industry.

CHAPTER 4: THE LONDON INFORMATION EXCHANGE Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation: Throughout the reporting of this book, ENRC and its outside media representative did not respond to inquiries or written questions. the “Kazakh Trio” or the “Trio”: The three oligarchs who composed the Trio were Patokh Chodiev, Alexander Machkevitch, and Alijan Ibragimov. one titled Londongrad: That book, which Hollingsworth coauthored with Stewart Lansley, was published in 2010 by Fourth Estate. his corporate bio stated: Robert Trevelyan was involved with numerous companies. This bio was on the website of one called Luxian. Trevelyan made copies of ENRC hard drives: ENRC made this allegation in numerous lawsuits.

.), 120–121, 214 GlobalSource, 79–81, 291 Global Witness background, 56 Hollingsworth’s connection to, 72 operative-for-hire investigations of, 101–103, 164–165, 167–170, 174, 231 Simpson’s connection to, 56–57 Goldfarb, Alexander, 261 Goldstone, Rob, 122, 124 Good Governance Group, 226 Goodley, Simon, 178 GPW, 226 Grassley, Charles, 214 Greenpeace, 42–43, 137, 198 Greyhawk, 226 Guantanamo Bay, 208–209 The Guardian, 35–36, 177, 211, 243–244, 266–267, 270, 302 Gubarev, Aleksej, 256–257 gullibility, 250 hacking, 5–6, 26–27, 198–200, 276 hacking-for-hire operations, 199–200, 276 Hakluyt, 42–44, 137 “Hall of Slime,” 46 Halpert, Baruch, 78–80, 82, 291 Hannity, Sean, 186, 213–214 Hanoi (Vietnam), 166–167 Hanson, Walker, 260, 262–263 Harding, Luke, 211, 217, 243–244, 266–267, 270, 303 Heath, Edward, 35–36 Herbalife, 129 Hermitage Capital, 21–22, 60–61, 82–83, 113–115, 117, 123 Hewlett-Packard, 44–45 Hill, Fiona, 244–245, 264 Hoagland, Richard, 287 Hoarau, Gérard, 6–7 Hollingsworth, Mark Akhmetshin’s connections to, 78 background, 72–74 on Carr, 175 as double agent, 230–231 downfall of, 175–180, 223–227 email hack of, 225–227, 300 ENRC and, 73–76, 138, 223–225, 227, 230–231, 290, 301 Kazakh Trio investigation by, 228–229 Londongrad, 74, 290 personal characteristics, 72 physical appearance, 72 Simpson’s connection to, 75–76, 227 Steele’s connection to, 138, 227 Holmes, Elizabeth, 92, 93–95, 96, 98, 293 Holt, Lester, 207 Horowitz, Michael, 236 Horowitz report, 236–239, 241–242, 254, 260, 297 Hulcoop, Adam, 199–200 Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, 119–121 Hungary, 108–109 Hussein, Saddam, 41–42, 242 Hynes, Richard, 179 Iceland’s banking collapse, 106–107 ifoundthepss.blogpost.com, 263–264 IGI (Investigative Group International), 65–66, 85–86 IMR (International Mineral Resources), 76–82, 138, 198, 227, 291 IMSI catcher, 198–199 India, 5, 53, 107, 200, 276 infant adoptions, in Russia, 21, 119–121, 124 information gathering notifications, 253–255 Insideco, 226 “Inside Google” blog, 59 The Insider (film), 16 Intelligence Online, 225–226, 227, 228, 230–231 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 171, 177–178 International Mineral Resources (IMR), 76–82, 138, 198, 227, 291 International Spy Museum, 222, 238 internet profile management, 104–106, 131–132 Investigative Group International (IGI), 65–66, 85–86 investigative journalism conference (University of California), 15–17, 129, 210 The Irish Times, 175, 179 Isikoff, Michael, 64–65, 68–69, 133, 149, 151, 217, 239–241 Israel, 107, 111, 118 Jacoby, Mary, 18, 19–20, 22, 29, 124–125, 139 Javers, Eamon, 275 Jennings, Andrew, 218 Jones, Daniel S., 208–210, 252–253, 272, 273 “journalism for rent,” 30, 128–129, 277–278 K2 Intelligence asbestos case fallout, 172–175 background, 12, 38, 48–50 ENRC case and, 224 Hollingsworth’s email dump and, 226 Moore at, 33, 35, 38, 50–52, 163–173 1MDB scandal and, 176–177 services offered by, 104 Weinstein case and, 103 Kabila, Joseph, 101–102, 103 Kantor, Jodi, 204 Katsyv, Denis, 114, 118 Katsyv, Pyotr, 118, 119 Kaufmann, Adam, 89–90 Kavalec, Kathleen, 152–153, 254 Kazakhstan, 23–29, 73–74, 287 Kazakh Trio background, 73–74, 290 Carr and, 175 ENRC and, 76–78, 138, 230 falling out among, 227 Hollingsworth’s email hack and, 227 IMR and, 138 investigation of, 223–224, 228–229, 230 Kazan-Allen, Laurie, 51–52, 163, 168, 171, 174 Keller, Bill, 15 Khan, German, 297 Khashoggi, Jamal, 196 King, Heather, 94, 96 Koch brothers, 86 KPMG, 43–44 Kramer, David, 182–184, 187, 188–189, 256 Kroll, Jeremy, 38, 48–49, 50, 174, 175 Kroll, Jules, 12, 38–42, 48, 128, 174, 175 Kroll, Nick, 48 Kroll Associates (Kroll Inc. after 2001) background, 12, 38–41 competitors, 65 conflicts of interest and, 47–48 “Hall of Slime,” 46–47 Hollingsworth’s email dump and, 226 illegal activities of, 45–47 name change, 46 public relations control by, 24, 46–47 sale of, 48 services offered by, 36, 37, 104 Weinstein case and, 103 Kukuts, Siarhei, 147.


pages: 223 words: 10,010

The Cost of Inequality: Why Economic Equality Is Essential for Recovery by Stewart Lansley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Adam Curtis, air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, AOL-Time Warner, banking crisis, Basel III, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bonfire of the Vanities, borderless world, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, business process, call centre, capital controls, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Edward Glaeser, Everybody Ought to Be Rich, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, floating exchange rates, full employment, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, high net worth, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, James Dyson, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job polarisation, John Meriwether, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, laissez-faire capitalism, Larry Ellison, light touch regulation, Londongrad, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Martin Wolf, Mary Meeker, mittelstand, mobile money, Mont Pelerin Society, Myron Scholes, new economy, Nick Leeson, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, oil shock, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, proprietary trading, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, shareholder value, The Great Moderation, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, working-age population

Why neo-liberal reports of the end of history turned out to be premature’, Cambridge Journal of economics, vol 33, issue 4, 2009. 152 IMF, Global Financial Stability Report, April 2009, Appendix Tables 3 and 4. 153 CRESC, op. cit. p 42. 154 Anthony Sampson, The Midas Touch, Hodder & Stoughton, 1989, p 13. 155 Quoted in R Roberts and D Kynaston, City State, Profile, 2002, p 116. 156 Bank for International Settlements, Triennial Central Bank Survey, Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity, September, 2010. 157 Harvey, Neoliberalism, op. cit. p 161; P Dicken, Global Shift, Guilford Press, 2003, ch 13. 158 N Shaxson, Treasure Islands, Bodley Head, 2011, p 74. 159 Ibid. p 78. 160 The Observer, 24 December, 2006. 161 M Hollingsworth and S Lansley, Londongrad, Fourth Estate, 2009, ch 4. 162 Ibid. 163 Michael Freedman, ‘Welcome to Londongrad’, Forbes Global, 23 May 2005; R. Skidelsky, St Petersburg Times, 4 January 2003; David Satter, Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State, Yale University Press, 2003, p. 55. 164 J. Christensen, Tax Distortions, Fiscal Dumping and Tax Fraud, Tax Justice Network, 2003. 165 A.

Also by Stewart Lansley: Poverty and Progress in Britain (with GC Fiegehen and AD Smith) Poor Britain (with Joanna Mack) Beyond Our Ken (with Andy Forrester and Robin Pauley) After the Gold Rush Top Man: How Philip Green Built His High Street Empire (with Andy Forrester) Rich Britain: The Rise and Rise of the New Super-Wealthy Londongrad: From Russia With Cash (with Mark Hollingsworth) Copyright First published in 2012 by Gibson Square Tel: +44 (0)20 7096 1100 info@gibsonsquare.com www.gibsonsquare.com ISBN 978–1–908096–12–8 The moral right of Stewart Lansley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.


pages: 265 words: 80,510

The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption - Endangering Our Democracy by Frank Vogl

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active measures, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, blood diamond, Brexit referendum, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, corporate governance, COVID-19, crony capitalism, cryptocurrency, Donald Trump, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, Global Witness, Greensill Capital, income inequality, information security, joint-stock company, London Interbank Offered Rate, Londongrad, low interest rates, market clearing, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, profit maximization, quantitative easing, Renaissance Technologies, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, stock buybacks, too big to fail, WikiLeaks

The stakes for our economies and security have increased in recent years, not only because of the environmental costs related to a good deal of the extraction of natural resources, but also because China and Russia are striving to control vital resource assets in a growing number of nations.25 As government officials and their cronies and business associates cash in on their bribery and other illicit income, so they swiftly secure safe investment havens. For example, realtors in what has come to be known as “Londongrad” sell properties to foreign clients without pursuing meaningful checks on where they obtained their cash. And, to take another example, kleptocrats buying the greatest works of fine art in the world from Western dealers and auction houses find the enablers uninterested in asking where the cash comes from.

Therefore, much of the money-laundering management that takes place in Dubai sees not only the inflow of cash and other assets, notably gold, notably from across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, but also outflows via banking channels and often through offshore registered holding companies, and finally, into investment assets, including properties, in the much larger markets of North America and Western Europe.2 Real estate enablers in “Londongrad” have been plying their trade for decades, representing clients who use offshore holding companies, often registered in such places as the British Virgin Islands and the Caymans, to make their acquisitions. The market is popular with wealthy individuals from Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China, Greece, Pakistan, India, and the oil-rich kingdoms of the Gulf.

The money was also invested in extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishment – PR firms, charities, political interests, academia and cultural institutions were all willing beneficiaries of Russian money, contributing to a “reputation laundering” process. In brief, Russian influence in the UK is “the new normal,” and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene and accepted because of their wealth. This level of integration—in “Londongrad” in particular—means that any measures now being taken by the Government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation. It is not just the oligarchs either: the arrival of Russian money resulted in a growth industry of enablers—individuals and organizations who manage and lobby for the Russian elite in the UK.


pages: 505 words: 133,661

Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land, and How to Take It Back by Guy Shrubsole

Adam Curtis, Anthropocene, back-to-the-land, Beeching cuts, Boris Johnson, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, congestion charging, Crossrail, deindustrialization, digital map, do-ocracy, Downton Abbey, false flag, financial deregulation, fixed income, fulfillment center, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, Global Witness, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Google Earth, housing crisis, housing justice, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, Kickstarter, land bank, land reform, land tenure, land value tax, linked data, loadsamoney, Londongrad, machine readable, mega-rich, mutually assured destruction, new economy, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, openstreetmap, place-making, plutocrats, profit motive, rent-seeking, rewilding, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Russell Brand, sceptred isle, Stewart Brand, the built environment, the map is not the territory, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, trickle-down economics, urban sprawl, web of trust, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

But after some outstanding detective work by Ed Caesar at the New Yorker – combing company records, speaking to neighbours and grilling estate agents – he managed to track down the purchaser as Andrei Guriev, owner of Russian agrichemical giant PhosAgro. He had bought it for his daughter: her Instagram account handle is @t_o_p_s_e_c_r_e_t. Such has been the impact of Russian investment on the capital – and its house prices – that investigative journalist Mark Hollingsworth dubs it ‘Londongrad’. By 2006, the Russians had become the biggest foreign buyers in London. It doesn’t stop there, however: some oligarchs have acquired a taste for buying up country seats, too. Abramovich, besides owning a townhouse in Chester Square and a £90m pad in Kensington Palace Gardens, bought up the 420-acre Fyning Hill Estate in West Sussex for his daughter some years back.

bribery has always David Leigh and Rob Evans, ‘Secrets of al-Yamamah’, Guardian, 2007, https://www.theguardian­.com/baefiles/page­/0­,2095831­,00­.html Prince Bandar David Leigh and Rob Evans, ‘The BAE files: cast of characters: Prince Bandar’, Guardian, 7 June 2007, https://www.theguardian­.com/world/2007­/jun­/07­/bae5­ alleged to be his winnings David Leigh and Rob Evans, ‘Friend of the world’s leaders: man at centre of arms deal’, Guardian, 7 June 2007, https://www.theguardian­.com/world/2007­/jun­/07­/bae12­. 2,500-acre Glympton Park Chris Koenig, ‘Saudi Prince’s Oxfordshire estate’, Oxford Times, 1 May 2008, http://www­.oxfordtimes.co­.uk/business/­profiles­/2239673­.Saudi_Princ­e_s_Oxfo­rdshire_­estate­/ Said went on David Leigh and Rob Evans, ‘The BAE Files: cast of characters: Wafic Said’, Guardian, 7 June 2007, https://www.theguardian­.com/world/2007­/jun­/07­/bae17­ personally intervened David Leigh and Rob Evans, ‘Blair called for BAE inquiry to be halted’, Guardian, 22 December 2007, https://www.theguardian­.com/baefiles/story­/0­,2231496­,00­.html peppered with vacant properties Robert Booth, ‘Inside ‘Billionaires Row’: London’s rotting, derelict mansions worth £350m’, Guardian, 31 January 2014. around $170 billion Figures cited in Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley, Londongrad (Fourth Estate, 2009), p. 61. successive influxes Luke Harding, A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia’s War with the West (Guardian Faber Publishing, 2016). occasional bus tours http://clampk.org/2016­/01/20/kleptocracy­-tours­/ still owns a property Luke Harding, ‘Mega-rich homes tour puts spotlight on London’s oligarchs’, Guardian, 4 February 2016.

Furious locals, a massive underground extension, and the mystery owner of London’s most incredible home’, Daily Mail, 24 June 2011. outstanding detective work Ed Caesar, ‘House of secrets: who owns London’s most expensive mansion?’, New Yorker, 1 June 2015. biggest foreign buyers Hollingsworth and Lansley, Londongrad, p. 134. townhouse in Chester Square Graham Norwood, ‘Why London’s Chester Square remains a premier address’, Financial Times, 18 March 2016. £90m pad Ryan Kisiel, ‘Welcome to the neighbourhood! Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich buys £90m home on Britain’s most expensive street’, Daily Mail, 29August 2011.


pages: 429 words: 120,332

Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens by Nicholas Shaxson

Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, call centre, capital controls, collapse of Lehman Brothers, computerized trading, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, export processing zone, failed state, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Global Witness, Golden arches theory, high net worth, income inequality, Kenneth Rogoff, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, land value tax, light touch regulation, Londongrad, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, Money creation, money market fund, New Journalism, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, oil shock, old-boy network, out of africa, passive income, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Suez crisis 1956, The Spirit Level, too big to fail, transfer pricing, vertical integration, Washington Consensus

Having gone out of its way to welcome wealthy Arabs since the 1980s and rich Japanese and oil-rich Africans since the 1990s, the City has more recently aggressively courted Russian oiligarchs, offering them an almost tax-free bolt-hole beyond the reach of Russian law enforcement: Alexander Zvygintsev, Russia’s deputy prosecutor-general, describes “London-grad,” as it is sometimes known, as “a giant laundrette for laundering criminally sourced funds.”22 The contrast between London and New York, in terms of tolerance for criminal behavior, is stark. In January 2009, for instance, U.S. law enforcement fined the British bank Lloyds TSB $350 million after it admitted to secretly channeling Iranian and Sudanese money into the U.S. banking system.

Senate Committee, June 3, 2008, http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/IMGJune3Testimony0.pdf. 19.Michael Foot, “Final Report of the Independent Review of British Offshore Financial Centres,” HM Treasury (UK), October 2009. 20.“Reaction to the Tax Gap Series,” The Guardian, February 14, 2009. 21.Prem Sikka, “UK Company Law Is Terrorism’s Friend,” The Guardian, January 20, 2010. 22.Will Stewart, “Londongrad . . . Russia’s Money Laundry,” The Express (UK), February 27, 2010; and “Britain Called Crooks’ Haven,” Sydney Morning Herald, February 28, 2010. 23.See “Lloyds Forfeits $350m for Disguising Origin of Funds from Iran and Sudan,” The Guardian, January 20, 2009; and “Lloyds TSB to Pay $350 Million to Settle Probe,” Bloomberg, January 10, 2009. 24.Megan Murphy, “Banking: City Limits,” Financial Times, December 13, 2009; and Richard Roberts, The City: A Guide to London’s Global Financial Centre, 2nd ed.

.), 17–19, 24, 26, 54–5, 61, 63–86, 87–8, 98, 103, 105–6, 109, 115, 129–30, 134, 136, 147–8, 182, 212, 222, 224, 235n18, 236n23,25,28, 239n13, 242n27,32,34, 243n36,37,42, 244n72 and Britain’s offshore spiderweb, 68–9 and the Caribbean, 87–106 central organization of, 70–4 See City of London Corporation and City Cash, 74 controlling role of, 45–6, 96–6 and “domicile” rule, 69 global reach of, 18 history of, 63–86, 87 See “Big Bang”; Euromarkets and international financial deregulation, 85–6 and lending, 76–8 and “London-grad,” 69 and loopholes, 67–8 as old boys network, 64–5 and “rehypothecation,” 68 and secrecy, 69 and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), 26 tentacles of: See British Crown Dependencies; British overseas territories; British zones of influence and the U.S., 67–8, 78–84 City of London Corporation (Corporation of London), 70–4, 76, 85–6, 224, 242n25, 243n36–37, 244n72 head of: See Lord Mayor of London history of, 71–2 and voting rights, 71 civil society, 170 Clinton, Bill, 52, 119–20, 150, 160 Clinton, Hillary, 30, 58 Coalition for Tax Competition, 150 Cold War, 75, 109, 138 Coleman, Norm, 121 Colombia, 26, 101, 111, 133, 136 Medellin drug cartel, 101, 133 colonialism, 2–8, 20, 23, 65, 88–9, 93–5, 104–5, 117, 138, 147, 161, 184 Commodity Futures Trading Committee (CFTC), 68 Compact of Free Association, 22 comparative advantage theory, 16 competition, tax, 149–56 Confidential Relationships (Preservation) Law, 101–2 Congdon, Tim, 66 ConocoPhilips, 22 Cook, Geoff, 168 Cornfeld, Bernie, 97–8 corporate governance, 39, 85, 122–5, 201–2 corporate responsibility, 228–9 The Corporation (Bakan), 158 Corporation Trust (Delaware), 125–6 corruption, 126–8, 229 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), 126 country-by-country reporting, 222 Cowperthwaite, Sir John, 105 Craven, John, 81 credit cards, 193–201 criminal money See arms trafficking; bribes; drug money; mob/mafia; terrorist financing Crocodile Dundee, 33 Crook, Kenneth, 93–5 Cuba, 88–9, 93 currency trading, 63–4, 70 Cyprus, 10, 27, 33, 138, 238n52 Dai Xianglong, 86 Davison, Daniel, 81 Deepwater Horizon, 22 de la Torre, Lisandro, 36, 38, 46–7 de Rugy, Veronique, 150 deferrals, tax, 112–13 Delaware, 22, 26, 39–40, 120–1, 123–6, 150, 166, 193–201, 204, 207–12, 214, 222, 228, 247n31, 248n34,39,42, 254n3,4, 255n18, 256n40 Chancery Court, 124–5, 248n34 Corporation Trust office, 125–6 history of offshoring, 39–40, 123–6 and jurisdictions, 193–201, 204, 207–12, 214 and securitization/bundling, 26, 125 and usury, 193–5, 200, 204 Delaware Statutory Trust Act (1988), 201 DeLay, Tom, 160–1 Deloitte & Touche, 25, 202, 209 DeLong, Bradford, 49, 55, 158–9 democracy, 7–8, 13, 31, 33, 42, 56, 71, 82, 102, 113, 123, 129, 131, 144–8, 162, 164, 170, 182, 185, 189, 192, 195–6, 198, 206, 210, 212, 219, 222, 224 and taxation, 144–8 Democratic party, 31, 82, 123, 185, 195, 198, 254n4 Democratic Republic of Congo, 131 deregulation, 32, 52, 66, 74–6, 85, 87, 115, 129–30, 132, 155, 159, 182, 193, 200, 209–10, 212, 217 developing countries, 8, 28–30, 57–60, 91, 93, 97, 100, 108, 126, 129–48, 155–6, 164, 169, 183, 217, 222–5, 227, 229, 236n29, 237n44, 240n22, 246n13, 250n26 and blame-the-victim, 8, 29, 140–4 and capital, 57–60 and capital flight, 139–43 and mobile phone charges, 148 and the offshore system, 129–48 and reform, 223–4 and sovereign debt funds, 143–4 and tax, 144–8 and tax treaties, 147–8 See Bank of Credit and Commerce International Deviers-Joncour, Christine, 5 Dill, James B., 39 Disney, 7, 88 Double, Paul, 73 double taxation, 26, 41–2, 130, 146 defined, 26 “Double Irish,” 14 drug money, 6, 9, 18, 20, 22, 26–7, 29, 88, 101–2, 111, 120, 131–3, 136 du Pont, Pierre S.


Migrant City: A New History of London by Panikos Panayi

Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, British Empire, Brixton riot, call centre, Charles Babbage, classic study, discovery of the americas, en.wikipedia.org, financial intermediation, gentrification, ghettoisation, gig economy, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, immigration reform, income inequality, Londongrad, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, multicultural london english, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, post-war consensus, public intellectual, Shamima Begum, transatlantic slave trade, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight

Sophia London (London, 2002), pp. 21–6; Jonathan Harris, ‘London’s Greek Community’, in idem, pp. 3–8; Timotheous Catsiyannis, The Greek Community of London (London, 1993), pp. 44–53, 355–7, 405–12. 152. John Sweeney, ‘Among the Russians’, Time Out, 9–15 April 1986, pp. 18–21. 153. Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley, Londongrad: From Russia with Cash: The Inside Story of the Oligarchs (London, 2009), pp. 24, 117–29. 154. Ramy M. K. Aly, Becoming Arab in London: Performativity and the Undoing of Identity (London, 2015), pp. 50–1. 155. Ibid., pp. 52–69. 156. Laura Hunt Yungblut, Strangers Settled Here Amongst Us: Policies, Perceptions and the Presence of Aliens in Elizabethan England (London, 1996), pp. 19–22. 157.

Sunday Times Rich List, 3 April 2005. 135. Dominic Midgley and Chris Hutchins, Abramovich: The Billionaire from Nowhere (London, 2006). 136. Guardian, 28 May 2018. 137. Vidya Ram, ‘Britain Proposes Controversial Changes to Investor Visas’, Businessline, 26 February 2014; Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley, Londongrad: From Russia with Cash: The Inside Story of the Oligarchs (London, 2009), p. 24; John Lanchester, ‘Why the Super-Rich Love the UK’, Guardian, 24 February 2012; Geoffrey DeVerteuil and David Manley, ‘Overseas Investment into London: Imprint, Impact and Pied-à-terre Urbanism’, Environment and Planning A, vol. 49 (2017), pp. 1308–23. 138.

Harris, Hermione, Yoruba in Diaspora: An African Church in London (Basingstoke, 2008). Hassiotis, Anna, The Greek Cypriot Community in Camden (London, 1989). Hill, Clifford D., West Indians and the London Churches (Oxford, 1963). Hogarth, George, The Philharmonic Society of London (London, 1862). Hollingsworth, Mark and Lansley, Stewart, Londongrad: From Russia with Cash: The Inside Story of the Oligarchs (London, 2009). Hooton-Smith, Eileen, The Restaurants of London (London, 1928). Hueffer, Frances, Half a Century of Music in London (London, 1889). Hyndman, Albert, ‘The West Indian in London’, in S. K. Ruck, ed., The West Indian Comes to England: A Report Prepared for the Trustees of the London Parochial Charities by the Family Welfare Association (London, 1960).


pages: 317 words: 71,776

Inequality and the 1% by Danny Dorling

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, buy and hold, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, corporate governance, credit crunch, David Attenborough, David Graeber, delayed gratification, Dominic Cummings, double helix, Downton Abbey, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, family office, financial deregulation, full employment, gentrification, Gini coefficient, high net worth, housing crisis, income inequality, land value tax, Leo Hollis, Londongrad, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, lump of labour, mega-rich, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, Mont Pelerin Society, mortgage debt, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, precariat, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Robert Shiller, Russell Brand, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, unpaid internship, very high income, We are the 99%, wealth creators, working poor

The Shipping Containers Being Rented Out for £75 a Week to Try to Solve London’s Chronic Housing Crisis’, Daily Mail, 9 October 2013. 47. N. Shaxson, J. Christensen and N. Mathiason, ‘Inequality: You Don’t Know the Half of It’, Tax Justice Network, 19 July 2012, at taxjustice.net. 48. L. Slater, ‘Keeping Up with the Zahoors: Inside the Super-Rich World of Londongrad’, Times Magazine, 23 November 2013, p. 41. 49. M. Seamark, ‘Blairs Paid £1.35m in Cash for Home Number SEVEN: Splashed Out on a Four-Storey Georgian Townhouse for Son Nicky’, Daily Mail, 2 February 2013. 50. NatCen, ‘Mortgage Interest Rates Helping the Rich to Save More?’, London, National Centre for Social Research, 2013, at natcen.ac.uk.


pages: 352 words: 80,030

The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active measures, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Boris Johnson, cashless society, clean water, cryptocurrency, Deng Xiaoping, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, global supply chain, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, invisible hand, land reform, Londongrad, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, Meghnad Desai, Nelson Mandela, Paris climate accords, purchasing power parity, ransomware, Rubik’s Cube, smart cities, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Bannon, trade route, trickle-down economics, UNCLOS, urban planning, WikiLeaks, zero-sum game

The emerging trade in donkey skins and its implications for donkey welfare and livelihoods (January 2017). 31BBC News, ‘Niger bans the export of donkeys after Asian demand’, 6 September 2016; Media Group Tajikistan Asia Plus, ‘Donkey market booms in Tajikistan’, 4 January 2017. 32Kimon de Greef, ‘Rush for Donkey Skins in China Draws Wildlife Traffickers’, National Geographic, 22 September 2017. 33Filipa Sá, ‘The Effect of Foreign Investors on Local Housing Markets: Evidence from the UK’, CEPR Discussion Paper No DP11658 (2016), pp. 1–43. 34Emanuele Midolo, ‘Russian investors: Welcome to Londongrad’, Propertyweek, 13 April 2018. 35Yuan Yang and Emily Feng, ‘China’s buyers defy the law to satisfy thirst for foreign homes’, Financial Times, 13 March 2018. 36Esha Vaish and Dasha Afansieva, ‘Hong Kong property investors go trophy hunting in London despite Brexit’, Reuters, 21 August 2017. 37Matt Sheehan, ‘How Chinese Real Estate Money is Transforming the San Francisco Bay Area’, MacroPolo, 22 August 2017; Paul Vieira, Rachel Pannett and Dominique Fong, ‘Western Cities Want to Slow Flood of Chinese Home Buying.


pages: 352 words: 98,561

The City by Tony Norfield

accounting loophole / creative accounting, air traffic controllers' union, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banks create money, Basel III, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, capital controls, central bank independence, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, continuation of politics by other means, currency risk, dark matter, Edward Snowden, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, financial intermediation, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, G4S, global value chain, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, interest rate derivative, interest rate swap, Irish property bubble, Leo Hollis, linked data, London Interbank Offered Rate, London Whale, Londongrad, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, means of production, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, Real Time Gross Settlement, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, seigniorage, Sharpe ratio, sovereign wealth fund, Suez crisis 1956, The Great Moderation, transaction costs, transfer pricing, zero-sum game

See BIS, ‘The Basel III Capital Framework: A Decisive Breakthrough’, speech by Hervé Hannoun, Deputy General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, 22 November 2010; Patrick Jenkins, ‘HSBC Prepares to Leap the Vickers Ringfence’, Financial Times, 8 December 2013; ‘The Independent Commission on Banking: The Vickers Report’, House of Commons Library Standard Note SNBT 6171, by Timothy Edmonds, 3 January 2013. 6Oxfam, ‘Financial Transaction Tax’, 2014, at oxfam.org. 7Thomas Richter, ‘Financial Transaction Tax Will Damage Economy’, Financial Times, 8 September 2013. 8Joshua Smith, ‘Update on the EU’s Proposed Financial Transactions Tax’, 24 June 2014, available at lexology.com. 9Philip Stafford and Brooke Masters, ‘Libor Deal Commences Rehabilitation of Benchmark’, Financial Times, 9 July 2013. 10Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley, Londongrad: From Russia with Cash. The Inside Story of the Oligarchs, London: Fourth Estate Ltd, 2010. 11Nicholas Watt, ‘UK Seeking to Ensure Russia Sanctions Do Not Harm City of London’, Guardian, 3 March 2014. 12Partick Jenkins and Camilla Hall, ‘Sheikh in Barclays Rescue Sells Stake’, Financial Times, 18 July 2013. 13Owen Jones, ‘The Left Must Put Britain’s EU Withdrawal on the Agenda’, Guardian, 14 July 2015. 14BBC News, ‘Cameron Unveils Islamic Bond Plan’, 29 October 2013, at news.bbc.co.uk. 15Elaine Moore and Thomas Hale, ‘UK Sukuk Bond Sale Attracts £2bn in Orders’, Financial Times, 25 June 2014. 16TheCityUK, UK: the Leading Western Centre for Islamic Finance, October 2013, at thecityuk.com. 17BEA, ‘US International Transactions Tables’, 2014, pp. 2, 79–81, at bea.gov. 18Walter and Howie, Red Capitalism, p. 163. 19BBC News, ‘BRICS Nations to Create $100bn Development Bank’, 15 July 2014, at news.bbc.co.uk. 20Josh Noble, ‘Renminbi Joins Top Five Most-Used Currencies’, Financial Times, 28 January 2015. 21Josh Noble, ‘UK and China Establish Currency Swap Line’, Financial Times, 23June 2013. 22Lucy Hornby and Patrick Jenkins 2013, ‘Chancellor George Osborne Cements London as Renminbi Hub’, Financial Times, 15 October 2013. 23 Simon Rabinovitch and James Fontanella-Khan, ‘London to Dominate Rmb?


pages: 537 words: 158,544

Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order by Parag Khanna

Abraham Maslow, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, Bartolomé de las Casas, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, cognitive dissonance, colonial rule, complexity theory, continuation of politics by other means, crony capitalism, death from overwork, Deng Xiaoping, different worldview, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, dual-use technology, Edward Glaeser, energy security, European colonialism, export processing zone, facts on the ground, failed state, flex fuel, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, friendly fire, gentrification, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, haute couture, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, invisible hand, Islamic Golden Age, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Khyber Pass, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, land reform, Londongrad, low cost airline, low skilled workers, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, meritocracy, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Nelson Mandela, no-fly zone, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, oil-for-food scandal, open borders, open economy, Parag Khanna, Pax Mongolica, Pearl River Delta, pirate software, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, Potemkin village, price stability, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, reserve currency, restrictive zoning, rising living standards, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, special economic zone, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas L Friedman, trade route, trickle-down economics, uranium enrichment, urban renewal, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce

But rather than fuel Russian neo-authoritarianism, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) invests in upgrading a dilapidated infrastructure and building a noncorrupt private sector—moves that can inspire a future democratic Russia from below. Putin’s outbursts demanding respect for the “Russian way” and sponsoring of nationalistic youth cults failed to silence the many Russians who want more such European intrusions. Wealthy Russians prefer to boost the economies of “Londongrad” and Berlin—where exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky openly called for a coup to depose Putin—depriving the Kremlin even further of talent and resources, while the EU makes a greater Russian stake in its aerospace industry contingent on improved transparency. “We can push Russia into an industrial and political partnership like France and Germany had in the 1950s,” a European Council official confidently urged.