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Global Counsel, the advisory firm founded by Lord Peter Mandelson, is set to go into administration as soon as Friday in the wake of revelations about the former peer and Jeffrey Epstein, its staff have been told.
Multiple people within the company told the FT that chair Archie Norman and chief executive Rebecca Park had informed staff on Thursday that the “Peter Mandelson legacy” had led to the business’s collapse.
Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, who set up Global Counsel with Mandelson, resigned as chief executive last week, while high-profile clients quit, after the FT reported that the peer sought advice from Epstein on how to launch the advisory firm in 2010.
Documents published by the US Department of Justice also showed that Wegg-Prosser met the convicted sex offender when he was under house arrest in New York to share the company’s business plan.
Mandelson stepped down from running Global Counsel when he was appointed as the UK’s ambassador to Washington but retained a large stake in the company.
One senior Global Counsel figure emphasised that the firm was set to collapse because of the historic links between Mandelson and Epstein and that this did not reflect on the work of its employees. “There are a lot of well-regarded staff who have only been here for a year or two,” they said.
The company has more than 100 staff in Berlin, Brussels, London, Singapore, Washington, DC and Doha.
Fintech Klarna, insurance company Phoenix Group, Barclays Bank, private equity group KKR and retailer Tesco hade all ended their relationships with Global Counsel, while telecoms group Vodafone put its contract under review after the Epstein files were released.
Pharmaceutical company GSK, which has been advised by Global Counsel in the past, said it “had no plans to engage with the firm any further”, while the Premier League has also recently cut ties.
The company has been approached for comment.
This is a developing story