Mandelson ‘Received £1.5m’ From Collapsed Firm As Staff Got Nothing

Disgraced Labour veteran Peter Mandelson made over £1.5m selling his stake in his lobbying firm before it went bust over his links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – while staff received zero compensation.

The payout reportedly included £250,000 that he received just days before Global Counsel went bust last month. He made between £1.3m and £1.4m in a 2024 sale of shares to friends and associates, former colleagues told the Financial Times.

More than 100 staff members lost their livelihoods when clients, including Barclays and Tesco cut ties with Global Counsel, forcing it into administration on 19 February.

A batch of the Epstein files released in January contained documents showing that the former UK ambassador to Washington sought Epstein’s advice when co-founding Global Counsel in 2010.

Last month Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office for allegedly leaking market-sensitive secrets to Epstein around the same time that he founded the firm. He has denied any criminal wrongdoing and said he never acted for personal gain.

Global Counsel CEO Rebecca Park bought Mandelson’s remaining shares for £250,000 in February, as part of a bid to save the company’s reputation, the Financial Times reported. 

But staff received no paid consultation period, leaving them thousands of pounds out of pocket, according to Politico.

“It’s a shame for all the Global Counsel people who were impacted by this – a team of 120 brilliant people who lost their jobs while the one person who benefited was him,” a person close to the situation told the Financial Times.

When Mandelson was fired as the US’s ambassador to Washington this September over his friendship with Epstein, he took home a £75,000 taxpayer-funded payout.​