UK Nationwide Lottery Bid Chair Linked to ‘Kremlin’s’ Funding Financial institution
The chair of a UK Playing Fee committee that final month awarded the nation’s Nationwide Lottery contract to Allwyn Leisure was beforehand an enormous deal in Russia’s finance sector, The Mail on Sunday has realized.
The UKGC’s Stephen Cohen, seen above, didn’t declare his previous position accountable for the hedge fund arm of Russian financial institution Troika Dialog. (Picture: UKGC)
That’s controversial as a result of Allwyn is owned by Czech billionaire Karol Komarek, who additionally has enterprise ties to Russia.
Komarek joint-owns an underground fuel storage facility within the Czech Republic in a 50-50 partnership with the state-owned Russian vitality large, Gazprom. He has publicly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On March 15, the Nationwide Lottery Competitors Committee (NLCC) named Allwyn as its most popular bidder for the lottery, one of many UK’s most profitable public sector contracts.
However in accordance with the MoS, from 2005 to 2008, its chair, Stephen Cohen, ran the hedge fund arm of Troika Dialog, as soon as described as “the Kremlin’s most popular funding financial institution.” Whereas there, he labored underneath Andrey Sharonov, Putin’s former deputy financial minister.
Cohen was additionally a director of economic middleman EG Capital Advisors from 2017 to 2021. EG is managed by Igor and Alexander Mints. Their father is exiled Russian oligarch Boris Mints.
Russia Ties Undeclared
Regardless of this, there isn’t a point out of Cohen’s Russian connections in his biography on the UKGC web site, and so they had been additionally omitted from the federal government announcement of his appointment in 2020. Nor does Cohen point out Russia anyplace on his LinkedIn web page.
Whereas Cohen has no suggestion of wrongdoing, the dearth of transparency may strengthen the claims of dropping bidders who’re already difficult the choice.
Camelot Group, which has operated the lottery since its 1994 inception, filed authorized proceedings in opposition to the UKGC in London’s Excessive Courtroom earlier this month. Its criticism focuses on allegations that the regulator modified the principles within the last weeks of the choice course of to learn Allwyn.
Italian lottery operator Sisal, just lately acquired by Flutter Leisure, is believed to be contemplating becoming a member of the Camelot lawsuit.
In the meantime, one other defeated bidder, British billionaire Richard Desmond, launched a authorized problem of his personal final week.
Large Choice
“That is such an enormous choice; all of this have to be utterly above board, notably as the choice is being challenged, and given the corporate awarded the license has its owns hyperlinks to Russia,” Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith informed the MoS.
That is necessary given what has been occurring politically in Russia for a very long time. I’m shocked to search out the chairman of the committee has Russian connections that aren’t declared,” Smith added.
In an announcement, a UKGC spokesperson mentioned data relating to candidates was anonymized through the board’s last choice. “A good and clear course of was in place to solely determine the applying that finest meets the wants of the Nationwide Lottery.”
