August 16, 2022
According to The Guardian report, BBC’s chair invested in a crypto company founded by a now sanction-hit Russian oligarch.
Richard Sharp was an early investor in Atomyze, a Swiss blockchain business established by the oligarch Vladimir Potanin.
Also known as the “Nickel King,” known friend of Vladimir Putin,was one of the oligarchs summoned to the Kremlin when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Russian businessman was hit with sanctions by the UK government in June as part of a crackdown on “Putin’s inner circle.”
A spokesperson for Sharp’s investment trust said he had “a longstanding interest in a range of emerging technology companies.”
“The arrangement was maintained after Sharp became chairman of the BBC,” the spokesperson added.
Atomyze is a blockchain platform for digitizing and tokenizing commodities including palladium, gold, silver and nickel.