Tory peer Greg Barker quits job at Russian metals firm EN+ over firm’s links to sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska in the wake of Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Barker confirmed he will step down from board of EN+ after five years
- Earned up to £6m a year as executive chairman of aluminium business
- It boasts sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska as a major shareholder
A former Tory minister today bowed top pressure to quit the board of a Russian metals firm amid the business backlash over the invasion of Ukraine.
Former energy minister Greg Barker confirmed he will step down from his role at aluminium giant EN+ after five years.
The peer has earned up to £6 million a year as executive chairman of a firm that which boasts sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska as a major shareholder.
Lord Barker retains his seat in the House of Lords while working full-time for the company.
He will step down after a transition and hand over to New York-born Christopher Bancroft Burnham, a former under secretary general at the United Nations.
The announcement came after auditing giants PwC and KPMG said on Sunday they were cutting ties with their Russian businesses.
Lord (Greg) Barker (pictured in 2010) has earned up to £6 million a year as executive chairman of aluminium giant EN+
EN+ boasts sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska (pictured in 2019) as a major shareholder. Lord Barker retains his seat in the House of Lords while working full-time for the company
Lord Barker had been under growing pressure to step away from his role at EN+.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told The Mail on Sunday that Lord Barker must sever ties with the Russian company and quit the House of Lords for good.
He also called on the Tory peer to ‘explain why he works with people like Deripaska’.
Last week politicians across Europe resigned from their roles on Russian companies following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Esko Aho, the former prime minister of Finland, quit the board of Russian bank Sberbank, and Matteo Renzi, Italy’s ex-prime minister, walked away from his role at Delimobil, Russia’s largest car-sharing service.
In 2018, Mr Wallace, then Security Minister, refused a meeting with Lord Barker who he said was ‘requesting government assistance for Russian associates’.
It led to the House of Lords’ Commissioner for Standards launching an investigation into the peer, who was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Lord Barker was the Conservative MP for Bexhill & Battle until 2015 and served as Energy Minister in David Cameron’s government. The peer joined EN+ in 2017, just before the company’s London listing.
The United States introduced sanctions against EN+ in 2018, but these were dropped after Mr Deripaska gave up his controlling stake.
He retained a 44.95 per cent shareholding. At the time a spokesman for Lord Barker said the US Treasury decided to remove the sanctions from EN+ Group because of the ‘unprecedented and sweeping corporate governance and ownership changes that Lord Barker oversaw and the consequent removal from control of the group of Oleg Deripaska’.
When Lord Barker was made executive chairman of the aluminium giant in 2019, he took a voluntary ‘leave of absence’ from the House of Lords.
Controversial leave-of-absence rules allow peers to take open-ended breaks while keeping their titles, use Lords facilities and even use Lords stationery.
They cannot vote or speak and do not have to register their outside interests.
Peers and MPs have described the system as a ‘loophole’ that allows peers to ‘keep almost all of the perks while simply not having to declare [interests]’.
Cross-party politicians have called for the leave-of-absence rules to be scrapped.
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