Atlantic Bridge Domain 129

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Atlantic Bridge’s web presence has disappeared, as has the Charity Commission’s report on it when it had its charitable status removed. Indeed it has proved rather hard to glean information on this Fox/Werritty vehicle: it seems that William Hague was a member as were, according to Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donell, not just Fox but the two junior defence ministers Werritty met. So this shady fake charity with undisclosed finance sources really was running British foreign and defence policy.

With thanks to my informant, it appears the domain for the Atlantic Bridge website was listed to a Mr Michael Pearsall of 15 Broomfields, Longfield, Kent DA3 8BW. Now what can anybody tell me about him? The contact email for the site registration was [email protected]. Presumably that email address relates to Fox’s portfolio of health before he was switched to defence? If he didn’t make any money from his worngdoing, isn’t it strange how these business consultancies and donation seeking organisations linked to him reflected his official portfolio at the time?

So Michael Pearsall, Peter Stock and ukhealthgroup.com. Let’s get digging!!

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129 thoughts on “Atlantic Bridge Domain”

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  • Guest

    Komodo, by definition everything has an end game. In saying…”Whatever’s going on, it has taken a lot of work to set up. It will take a lot of work to unravel.”…Indeed, we think along the same lines.

  • John Goss

    The important information from the FT link above is as follows.
    .
    Hylton claims he has no role in the running of Pargav, which financed Werritty’s trips.
    .
    Contributors to Pargav appear to be Michael Hintze, a hedge fund millionare, Jon Moulton, a venture capitalist, Michael Lewis (Oeana Investments) who has donated to Tory funds and used to be deputy chairman of Bicom, a group which lobbies on behalf of Israel, Tamares Real Estate (owned by Poju Zabludowicz, multi-millionaire chairman of Bicom whose fortune was made on the back of arms trading, and G3 Good Governance Group, which investigates and advises on strategic affairs. This last, the Financial Times reports, shared offices with Liam Fox’s Sri Lankan Development Trust, which it calls “a mysterious vehicle” which has ndone little other than pay for Fox’s overseas trips to Sri Lanka as shadow minister.

  • Komodo

    I wonder if you set up a company to pay your stooge, and then shut it down before your accounts were unavoidably due, you would be quids in?

  • ingo

    “Private information about private people”. Nonsense – all of this information is from public sources. You can, incidentally, get my own home address from Who’s Who.

    Absolutely right, you get all sorts of info on people if you try hard enough… and you all have come up with some serious ends to this tome, still in the making.

    As for your address Craig, you need two gate pillars and a gate 🙂

  • John Goss

    Yesterday I commented on why a Charity Commission link was not working. There was nothing sinister in it. Apparently everything gets archived after six months but can be requested. Mrs Victoria Feltham kindly sent me a copy of the report the conclusions of which are:

    “Conclusions
    35 The Commission concluded that the Atlantic Bridge Education and Research Scheme is established as a charity with exclusively charitable purposes and is capable of operating for the public benefit.

    36 The educational objects of the Charity have not been advanced by its activities because these activities promote a particular point of view which is not uncontroversial, and are consequently not educational. In addition the results and findings of the work of the Charity have not been sufficiently disseminated to the public. The activities of the Charity have not furthered any of its other charitable purposes in any way.
    37 The Commission also concluded that the activities of the Charity may lead members of the public to call into question its independence from party politics. The promotion of the Special Relationship is not the purpose of this Charity, nor can it be. The Commission has made clear to the trustees their legal and regulatory responsibilities and that the Charity’s current activities must cease immediately.
    38 To ensure that the Charity operates in compliance with charity law, the Commission has requested that the Charity undertake to carry out certain steps in the next twelve months as detailed below.”

    It then gives a series of issues for Atlantic Bridge to address including the maintenance of proper records regarding trustee decision-making, to which it quite obviously did comply.

  • Dena Shunra

    Apparently, there is an organization called the Atlantic Forum for Israel. It is involved in some way with some of the people here.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/12/adam-werritty-liam-fox-iranian

    The Atlantic Forum of Israel appears to relate to such leading lights as Uzi Arad – with connections at the Hudson Institute. Here’s Arad’s Wikipedia page, which references this Atlantic Forum of Israel organization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzi_Arad

    This link seems to go a long ways toward implicating Israel’s leadership into the Liam Fox/Werrity scandal.

  • Komodo

    Thanks, Dena Shunra, looks relevant.Asad co-wrote a paper for the 2007 Herzilya Conference which supports this:
    .
    http://www.herzliyaconference.org/_Uploads/2618Speakerslist.pdf
    .
    Concluding remarks:

    “While senior officials have played an important role so far, so has the GMF-AFI*
    unofficial network. This network has been instrumental in increasing policy
    awareness of NATO-Israel relations, and in enhancing Israel’s relations with the
    Euro-Atlantic community. The discussions that the GMF-AFI relationship has

    fostered have led to an understanding that positioning or anchoring Israel in the Euro-
    Atlantic community could be a considerable contribution to regional stability and to
    the peace process. In this sense, this network can account for the increasing
    importance of unofficial networks for international governance. As Anne-Marie
    Slaughter argues, this is a new world order. Israel should recognize this new
    multilateral order and engage with it.

    .
    * German Marshall Fund (qv) – Atlantic Forum Israel

  • Komodo

    @Cynical Highlander – ciamar a tha sibh.

    . Not often I save a web page rather than just bookmarking it. Hope Madsen’s right.

    . Gu math!

  • John Goss

    Tom Griffin, that Powerbase looks a powerful tool, it lists them all, Hintze, Werritty, Zabludowicz, Lewis and Moulton.
    .
    Hintze is listed as a philanthropist. He has donated to the restoration of the Sistine Chapel and has been dubbed a knight of the Vatican, also mentioned in CynicalHighlander’s link.

  • Komodo

    John, I seem to have lost a post in which I suggested that the UK media’s concentration on Hintze, who is squeaky-clean as regards his associations with the murky side, and their reluctance to mention the others in bold flashing capitals, might not be completely coincidental. So I’ll repeat the thought.

  • John Goss

    Komodo, the Godfather never gets his hands dirty himself. Others do the dirty work. But the Fox/Werritty affair is a great insight into what money is ploughed into political ideology.

  • Komodo

    Reference to the Godfather is apt. If these buggers had Italian names instead of disguised Mitteleuropean ones, they’d be Mafiosi. And our leaders ( those not at the trough) might take a bit more notice of their activities.

  • Komodo

    My point was that Hintze is the safest name for the media to use, not that he wasn’t involved, btw.

  • John Goss

    Komodo, let’s hope their whole rotten house of cards comes tumbling down on the lot of them.

  • Komodo

    John, let’s *help* their whole rotten house of cards come tumbling down on the lot of them.

    FIFY 🙂

  • rwendland

    The accounts of Atlantic Bridge are still available on the Charity Commission website, even though they are no longer linked to from the closed down charity page. The links are:

    http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends13%5C0001099513_ac_20070203_e_c.pdf

    http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends13%5C0001099513_ac_20080203_e_c.pdf

    http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends13%5C0001099513_ac_20090203_e_c.pdf

    http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends13%5C0001099513_ac_20100203_e_c.pdf

    Open Charities have a copy of an old Charity Commission summary page at:

    http://opencharities.org/charities/1099513

    And a copy of the Charity Commission investigation report is at:

    http://www.docstoc.com/docs/71428735/RCR-Atlantic-Bridge

    I’ve just starting reading these!

  • Komodo

    Long time ago, I asked a local Tory councillor what nespapers he read. Among others, he said Private Eye and the Guardian. I expressed mild surprise: he said “I need to know what the enemy’s thinking.”
    ‘
    http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/56577/tories-solicited-cash-werritty
    .
    I find the JC is often better informed than the MSM…

    *
    *
    *
    *
    *

    By Martin Bright, October 18, 2011

    .
    Liam Fox
    .
    Senior Conservatives actively sought donations from wealthy Jewish businessmen to fund organisations run by Liam Fox’s friend Adam Werritty, the JC can reveal. The operation was part of a broader fundraising drive within the Jewish community authorised by David Cameron’s personal friend and party co-chairman Lord Feldman, although there is no suggestion he was involved in the Werritty transactions….

    .
    …The JC understands that the donors did not seek out Mr Werritty’s organisations but were, rather, actively solicited to donate by Conservative fundraisers, including the party treasurer Howard Leigh. Mr Leigh told the JC: “I am a treasurer of the Conservative Party, and so I raise money for the Conservative Party.” He would not be drawn further on the issue of Mr Werritty.
    .
    …Conservative Party sources told the JC that although Lord Feldman actively encouraged fundraising from the Jewish community, he had not raised funds for Mr Fox nor did he know Mr Werritty.

    [emphases mine – K]

  • Komodo

    It’s what they don’t say, isn’t it:
    “although Lord Feldman actively encouraged fundraising from the Jewish community, he had not raised funds for Mr (sic) Fox nor did he know Mr Werritty.”

    He knew Dr. Fox and he raised funds for Mr. Werrity, though. Subtle denial.

  • Komodo

    Rwendland, thank you.
    No wonder the police have expressed an interest in possible fraudulent activities. I’d be asking a couple of questions:

    Who were the consultancies absorbing something like half the charity’s income from 2008-2010?
    ‘
    An employee was taken on and appears to have been paid from 2007-2009. Tax and NI were not on the books for the first year, and her income seems to have dropped magically during the second. Explanation?
    .
    Where did Security Futures (prop, A. Werrity) get 15 grand to give AB in 2008-9? Does this have anything to do with BICOM’s Michael Lewis ceasing to throw in a similar amount, as he had done in previous years?
    .
    How much of the less-accountable payments in both directions involved (a) ALEC and (b) The Heritage Roundation,the two of whose events seem to form most of AB’s activities on the books?

    And I repeat, who were AB consulting? And why?

  • Komodo

    Filtering Fox’s political donors to those contributing more than £1000 each between 2001 and 2009, I find only these, as recorded by the Electoral Commission:
    .
    Michael Hintze (of course) £10,000 in 2007 Hintze Family Foundation is another vehicle for Hintze money: this was an individual donation, and cash like the following entries.
    .
    Robert Moulton £50,000 on THREE occasions (quite apart from subsidising Werritty? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049363/Liam-Fox-Tycoon-Jon-Moultons-60m-deal-handing-35k-Adam-Werritty.html ) 2006,7,8
    .
    Stanley “Lord” Fink, £10,000 on two occasions. These were personal donations, and not a gift from the Tories, whose treasurer Fink is. I hope. 2007,9
    .
    Alan Howard, shadowy hedge fund manager and now non-dom ( http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2010-06-29/alan-howard-moves-geneva ): £15,000 in 2007 and £4,500 in 2009

    And this guy, Michael Batt, who made 11 separate donations totalling £210,000, yes, £210,000
    between 2001 and 2008. Of late he seems to have switched to paying by instalments but from 2001 to 2005 he was handing Fox £30,000 a pop to help run his office. Or something.

    Who is Batt? No-one seems to be quite certain. Either he is am Amersham councillor who runs care homes and a chiropody training college with the assistance of a charitable foundation, or he is a musician of the same name who has written music for both the Conservatives and “Watership Down” – somewhat spoiling his bunnyhugging credentials by conducting a cull by marksmen of the proliferating rabbits on his own spacious spread, Conceivably, Michael Batt is both these things. Does anyone know for sure, please?

  • Komodo

    Who is Michael Batt, Fox’s donor to the tune of £210,000 between 2001 and 2008? Musician? Care home CEO? Both? Neither?

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