The financial services firm run by Labour’s new business tsar was incorporated in the Cayman Islands, Guido can reveal. Anthony Watson is the flamboyant president and chief operating officer of Uphold Inc, an online financial services company headquartered in California. Earlier this year he was appointed by the Shadow Business Secretary Angela Eagle to chair Labour’s Business and Enterprise Advisory Council. Eagle said at the time: “Both Anthony and I are determined to lay the foundations for a shared capitalism… It’s great that Anthony has agreed to chair this group which will help forge a new vision for a dynamic industrial strategy, because he has the fresh ideas and a proven track record of putting innovation and ethics at the heart of business practices.”. Well, how’s that whole “shared capitalism” and ethics thing working out?

Watson took charge of his financial services company in April 2015, when it went by the name Bitreserve. This is from their website:

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission documents seen by Guido show that Bitreserve’s jurisdiction of incorporation was the Caymans. Its address is a PO box.

What does Angela Eagle think about the ethics of her top business adviser running a company incorporated in the tax-free Caymans?