Shamed Mandelson ‘made greater than £1.5m promoting lobbying agency’s shares’ earlier than it collapsed over his Epstein ties

Peter Mandelson reportedly made more than £1.5million selling his shares in the advisory firm he created – including £250,000 in the days before it collapsed over his tied to Jeffrey Epstein.

The disgraced peer handed over to majority of his shares, worth up to £1.4million, in Global Counsel to family and friends in 2024, before he became ambassador to the United States, the Financial Times reported.

But as clients including Barclays, Vodafone, Tesco and Klarna severed ties with the company earlier this year over the scale of his friendship with the disgraced child abuser, the firm bought out his final shares so he had no links left to it. 

Global Counsel publicly announced it had cut all ties with Mandelson, while his former aide Benjamin Wegg-Prosser stepped down as CEO, as it tried to stay solvent.

However days later it went into administration with the loss of almost 100 jobs. It means he made a six-figure sum while the shares sold to friends were worthless and staff were handed little or no severance. 

Mandelson, famous for saying he was ‘intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich’ when he was a Labour minister, was last week revealed to have demanded a £580,000 pay-off when he was sacked as ambassador over his Epstein friendship.

It comes as Sir Keir Starmer faces further questions over his decision to make Mandelson a senior diplomat last year. 

Last night the Tories claimed the Prime Minister’s political fingerprints were ‘forensically removed’ from the recently-published files.

Lord Mandelson co-founded Global Counsel with Mr Wegg-Prosser in 2010 after Labour lost the general election.

He stepped down from its board about two years ago.

Mr Wegg-Prosser was previously a political adviser and director of strategic communications under former prime minister Tony Blair, before going on to work as a director at a Russian media firm.

Global Counsel has worked with a roster of clients including Palantir, GSK, Vodafone, OpenAI, TikTok and the English Premier League.

The firm, which had offices in cities including London, Berlin, Doha and Washington DC, announced it had stopped trading – with the majority of its 80-strong UK staff made redundant, on February 20.

Administrators at Interpath said it suffered a significant financial impact from a swathe of customers cutting ties with the firm. This left directors with no choice but to bring in administrators, it said.

Will Wright, UK chief executive of Interpath and joint administrator, said: ‘While Global Counsel had grown over the past 15 years to become one of the UK’s leading public affairs consultancies, the rapid and sudden loss of clients over recent weeks has had a monumental impact on the business.’ 

Downing Street last week finally released the first batch of documents surrounding Lord Mandelson’s appointment as Britain’s ambassador to the US in December 2024.

But although they confirmed Sir Keir was warned about the disgraced peer’s ‘particularly close’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, his response was not recorded.

The documents contained no record of what the Prime Minister thought about Lord Mandelson.

They also did not detail why he pushed through the controversial appointment after being told it was a ‘reputational risk’ to the Government.

In an urgent question in the House of Commons on Monday, senior Tory MP Alex Burghart said there were ‘many, many documents missing’.

‘It’s become increasingly clear that either the Government did not follow due process in its appointment of Peter Mandelson, or that it has not disclosed all of the relevant documents,’ the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said.

‘In different terms, either the PM’s assurances that full due process was followed was misleading, or the Government has not complied with the Humble Address. Either would be a contempt of Parliament.’

Lord Mandelson has been approached for comment.