Peter Mandelson sought advice from Jeffrey Epstein as he set up his consultancy, Global Counsel—including on how to approach prospective clients, among them the Chinese government.
A 2010 email exchange published in the so-called “Epstein files” casts doubt on attempts by Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, Global Counsel’s chief executive and a long-time Mandelson associate, to distance the firm from a man convicted of sexual offences against minors. The company’s client list includes major corporations such as JPMorgan, Palantir and Anglo American.
Wegg-Prosser, a co-founder of Global Counsel, met Epstein in New York to discuss the future business even before the firm’s official launch, and corresponded with him about the price of a potential Lazard deal. He also wrote directly to Epstein on at least two occasions, including to request his mobile number so he could pass on the password for the manuscript of Mandelson’s book.
In September last year, after Mandelson stepped down as the UK’s ambassador to the US amid the leak of emails showing the extent of his contacts with Epstein even after the 2008 conviction, Wegg-Prosser circulated a note to Global Counsel’s directors insisting that “GC has never had any dealings with Jeffrey Epstein”.
In the same message, Wegg-Prosser also attached a template letter for clients stating: “We would like to reassure you that GC has never had any business relationship or connection with Jeffrey Epstein in any form.”
Benjamin Wegg-Prosser—Global Counsel’s chief executive and a long-time close associate of Peter Mandelson.
Yet documents released last week by the US Department of Justice suggest that Epstein’s ties to the firm’s co-founders ran far deeper from the outset than was publicly claimed.
The emails suggest that in February 2010 Wegg-Prosser met Epstein to seek his advice on Global Counsel’s business plan. Ahead of the meeting, Mandelson wrote to Epstein: “Ben is flying to New York to meet you and set out the business plan.”
At the time, Epstein was on probation and under house arrest in New York after serving a jail term for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
A source close to Wegg-Prosser says he agreed to the meeting on Mandelson’s advice, that the conversation lasted just 25 minutes, and that the two never met again. Yet newly released documents indicate that after this contact Wegg-Prosser corresponded directly with Epstein at least twice more.
In a March 2 email to Mandelson, sent a week after the meeting, Epstein described Wegg-Prosser as “media-sensitive with a good feel for communications”, but with “weak” business instincts.
He wrote that Wegg-Prosser “can open doors, keep everyone happy, organise staff—both at the top and at the bottom—but you must set the agenda”. He concluded by urging Mandelson to “direct that considerable mind to helping yourself”.
Peter Mandelson’s book, “The Third Man”.
On August 3, Mandelson set out to Epstein his vision for a new advisory business that would later be called Global Counsel. “What is the new advisory business offering?” he wrote in a memo. “We are political people providing a service to business…our unique selling point is politics, not business…we are political advisers, not financial advisers or investment bankers.”
In the same document, Mandelson told Epstein he intended to offer “pure political advice” to governments and their leaders, suggesting that in time such clients could include “South Africa, Qatar, China”. He also cited media giants Universal and Time Warner as potential corporate clients.
Among other prospective targets, he mentioned Russia’s Sberbank, a majority stake in which is owned by the state, as well as India’s Essar Group, which later became embroiled in a tax dispute.
On November 7, 2010, Mandelson wrote to Epstein: “Hope you are looking out for wealthy individuals who might need Global Counsel.” The next day Epstein asked whether “Oleg will either be in Paris, thurs till Sunday, or Moscow next week”. The email was forwarded to Wegg-Prosser, who replied directly to Epstein: “will check”.
A person close to Global Counsel says Wegg-Prosser was acting “almost like Mandelson’s secretary”, passing messages to Epstein only at his direction.
On November 14, 2010, after Wegg-Prosser told Mandelson he was back from a trip, Mandelson forwarded Epstein an attachment: a spreadsheet titled “lead list 12.11.10”.
A Global Counsel spokesperson said: “Global Counsel was founded by Ben Wegg-Prosser with Peter Mandelson, with seed investment from WPP plc, in November 2010. Epstein played no role in the creation of Global Counsel or in its subsequent activities in any form.”
He added: “Like Gordon Brown and many others, we are only now learning the full extent of Mandelson’s conduct.”
A source close to the firm said Wegg-Prosser was used by Mandelson solely as an intermediary, and that the co-founders’ relationship fractured precisely because of Mandelson’s ties to Epstein, which Wegg-Prosser did not approve of.
However, another person familiar with the situation at Global Counsel said: “He was the chief executive. He was not a secretary or merely an assistant.”
A second source familiar with the details of the matter said: “Ben claimed he had never had any relationship with him. That is not true. They met to discuss the business plan in 2010, and later that year they founded the company.
I work with very talented and decent people at Global Counsel. I feel sorry for them. They were misled as well.
The board should put questions to Ben—demand an explanation of what was really going on here… Ben was Peter’s aide for 20 years. Peter is under criminal investigation. What did Ben know? By 2011 he was directly coordinating requests with Jeffrey.”