PR Agency Hired For Millions – To Influence Sweden

SVT showed how the Swedish government and ministers Ann Linde and Michael Damberg in 2018 and 2019 campaign To get the US government to ease sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and the aluminum group that owns the Copal plant in Sundsvall.

Companies that lobby on behalf of foreign actors to influence US policy must document and record activities.

Documents from the US Department of Justice show that Deripaska and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the aluminum group EN +, the British Lord of the Senate, Gregory Parker of Battle, paid the reputable lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs in New York more than six million crowns.

Invitation to the Swedish Ambassador to the United States

The money was paid in 2018, among other things, for the help of the Swedish government Oleg Deripaska and his company. The documents show a detailed roadmap and, for example, completed letters addressed to several politicians, including the Swedish Embassy in the United States as the sender.

The PR plan states, among other things, that Swedish-US Ambassador Karin Olofsdotter should send the letter to the US Department of State and Finance and contact “other officials with whom you have a particularly good working relationship.”

The letter contains language explaining how the sanctions will “seriously damage Sweden’s economy” and the jobs associated with the Kopal plant in Sundsvall.

SVT searched for Karin Olofsdotter with no results.

Generously rewarded by Deripaska

In the 2019 EN+ Annual Report, Chairman Lord Parker wrote about efforts to save Deripaska from sanctions.

He writes about how the company uses “all legal opportunities” to defend the long-term value of shareholder assets. He also noted that over several months he and his colleagues carried out a “complex and ultimately successful process” to get the US sanctions authority to remove the group from the sanctions list.

Lord Gregory Parker has been generously rewarded by Oleg Deripaska and other contributors for his work.

In 2019, his total pay for the presidency was closer to the equivalent of SEK 80 million. Parker resigned as chairman in early March of this year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to widespread criticism in Britain for his role in EN+.