Peter Mandelson's former consultancy firm, Global Counsel, collapsed with debts of £4.6 million, including more than £600,000 owed to HM Revenue and Customs, according to a report from the company's administrators.
The firm, which had advised clients such as TikTok, Palantir, and GSK, went into administration in February after losing a series of accounts linked to the peer's association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson, who denies any wrongdoing, resigned from the board in 2024 but continued to hold shares.
The largest external creditor is HMRC, owed £645,789, while employees are collectively owed £2.6 million. The company employed around 100 people, mostly in the UK, with smaller offices in Berlin, Brussels, Doha, and Singapore. Administrators reported total liabilities of £4,596,149 after accounting for £2.7 million in assets, though they anticipate only recovering about £2.7 million from assets worth over £10.7 million.
Co-founder and CEO Ben Wegg-Prosser, formerly Tony Blair's director of strategic communications, stepped down in early February as the firm faced scrutiny over Mandelson's ties to Epstein. The Epstein files revealed Wegg-Prosser met Epstein in New York in 2010 to discuss the business's launch. Wegg-Prosser described the meeting as a 'short meeting of no consequence.'
Global Counsel's client list came under renewed scrutiny this month when Mandelson failed the UK government's enhanced vetting for the role of ambassador to Washington, amid security concerns over his links to foreign states, including China.
