US commerce chief says he is likely to divest Russia-linked shipping stake

WASHINGTON: US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he probably would not keep his holdings in a shipping company with business ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and that he had fully and properly disclosed investments.

Pressed on whether he would retain the interest in Navigator Holdings, Ross told Bloomberg Television: “I’ve been actually selling it anyway, but that isn’t because of this.”

Ross, a billionaire investor who is helping to shape Republican President Donald Trump’s trade policy, was criticized when several media outlets reported that he had failed to disclose that one of Navigator’s clients is Russian gas and petrochemical company Sibur.

Sibur’s owners include Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov, and Gennady Timchenko, a Putin associate who is subject to US Treasury sanctions.

The information is based on leaked documents from offshore law firm Appleby that are part of the so-called Paradise Papers, which show details of business dealings by wealthy people and institutions ranging from Ross to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and trading firm Glencore.

They were obtained by Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and some media outlets and published on Sunday.

Reuters has not independently verified the documents.

The Paradise Papers are the second release of its kind by the ICIJ, which last year published the ‘Panama Papers,’ leaked documents from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca that chronicled a shadowy world of offshore holdings and hidden wealth. — Reuters