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THEY are, say the reviews, “perfect for a romantic getaway”. At the very heart of Glasgow there are six luxury holiday apartments. They take up three floors of a Georgian town house of blond sandstone.
Tripadvisor, the review website, lifts the lid on what lies behind classic drapes pulled behind the building’s sash windows. “Absolutely stunning apartments in brilliant location,” said one tourist. It was “finished to such a high standard me and my boyfriend couldn’t believe it”, added another.
This is 242 West George Street. The address last year cropped up in the prosecution of the fugitive former president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo. It was, according to prosecutors, the home of a business called Warbury & Co, which paid the one time democracy activist nearly $6 million. This, they claim, was a kickback, a bribe, for Mr Toledo helping a Brazilian construction giant get lucrative highway contracts. Mr Toledo denies this.
But how did Warbury come to be based right in the heart of Scotland’s biggest city? Who hosted it? Who registered it? And, who, ultimately, takes responsibility for its actions? The first of these three questions are easy to answer. The fourth impossible.
Why 242 West George Street? Well, because this used to be the Glasgow base of Burness Solicitors, now part of the blue chip giant Burness Paull. Burness did not have any direct dealings with Warbury. It simply provided an address, a peg to hang the firm on, a maildrop, a kind of virtual brass plate. It did so in 1993, a quarter of a century ago.
We asked Philip Rodney, Burness Paull’s chairman, about Warbury. He said the old Burness provided a registered office service to a “reputable third party agent” for a “nominal fee”. We ask him to name that agent. He refused to do so. Mr Rodney said: “The arrangement was put in place 25 years ago. Those involved at that time are no longer with the firm, but our records indicate we acted in accordance with practices applicable at that time.
“As you will understand, for reasons of client confidentiality, we cannot comment on the identity of our clients.
“Burness Paull takes its duties seriously and at all times complies with good practice and all applicable rules and regulations.”
Nobody has suggested Burness or later Burness Paull had any knowledge or involvement in the alleged bribery of Mr Toledo. Nor is there any evidence the old Burness “reputable third party agent” did so either.
Warbury was first created in 1993. Documents for its creation were presented by a firm called Edsaco Limited. We asked Mr Rodney if this was his client. He would not say.
Edsaco no longer exists. It was liquidated 15 years ago after a jury in
San Francisco in 2002 awarded damages against it of $170m. The London-based firm had been sued by the shareholders in another company called Scorpion, which had been selling fictitious software. Jurors found Edsaco aided Scorpion in setting up phony European companies. Edsaco said the claims against it were “without merit”.
The verdict came five years after the Serious Fraud Office in London raided Edsaco’s London offices, just off Regent Street. They seized 15 bags of evidence, all of which related to work carried out by one David Mills for Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian tycoon turned prime minister.
Mr Mills, a corporate lawyer, was later convicted and then, on appeal, cleared of a tax fraud involving Mr Berlusconi.
His story made headlines in the UK.
Why? He was married to Tony Blair’s first health minister, Tessa Jowell.
But. again, there is no evidence anyone at Edsaco then or now knew anything about the alleged corruption in Peru.
Warbury & Co, along with several other Edsaco SLPS with opaque ownership through offshore partners, remained registered at Burness until early this decade. So who owned it? That, thanks to what was effectively Scotland’s de-facto secrecy regime, is impossible to say. Fugitive president Alejandro Toledo says it was not him.
As you will understand, we cannot comment on the identity of our clients