On Pont Street in Belgravia in central London, on the first floor of a handsome Edwardian townhouse, sitting above the royal green awning of the Jeroboams wine shop, is an office. There are no obvious signs for it beyond a little note next to the intercom. When buzzed this week, no one appeared at the door.
This is the registered office of Hunnewell Partners, which describes itself as an “entrepreneurial private equity and litigation funding practice”.
The company is also the ultimate owner of Imedi TV, a broadcaster described by the disinformation monitoring arm of the EU’s foreign affairs service as the “propaganda megaphone undermining Georgia’s EU aspirations”, or the “ruling party’s most powerful propaganda machine, relentlessly pushing anti-western rhetoric and echoing Kremlin-style disinformation”.
Hunnewell Partners said Imedi TV, Georgia’s most popular broadcaster, was a small part of its holdings and that it had editorial independence. Imedi TV accused the EU’s disinformation body of factual inaccuracies and misunderstanding the channel’s editorial line. It denies being pro-Russian and anti-western.
There are strong and opposing views on both sides, but there can be little doubt that Georgia’s future is in the balance, and this London company is part of the debate.
The country seceded from the USSR in 1991 and there is a constitutional obligation on its governments to seek accession to the EU, but in recent years its politics has been transformed.
The governing party, Georgian Dream, led by its honorary chair, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in the country, has been accused by western governments, the EU and civil society groups of moving Georgia back into Russia’s sphere of influence and corrupting its democratic institutions.
A series of opposition leaders have been imprisoned in recent weeks and months.
In October, Georgia will hold important municipal elections. Last week, the UK and 36 other countries raised concerns about the lack of an invitation into the country for election monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) at a time of growing “repression” of civil society and independent journalists.
At a crucial moment in Georgia’s history, Imedi TV is said to be a malign player, helping to prop up what NGOs and western governments – including the US, which has imposed sanctions on Ivanishvili – claim is an increasingly authoritarian regime.
It seems the UK government’s public shows of concern have not gone unnoticed in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. This week alone, the broadcaster’s cameras “accidentally” filmed what the channel described as evidence of a “secret meeting” between two “radical opposition representatives” as they left the British embassy.
In August, Imedi reported on claims from Archil Gorduladze, the chair of the Georgian parliament’s legal affairs committee, that the British embassy had attempted to fund individuals connected to the opposition United National Movement party (UNM).
Last December, the Georgian parliament passed a “family values and the protection of minors” law that provides a legal basis for authorities to outlaw Pride events and public displays of the LGBTQ+ rainbow flag, and to impose censorship of films and books.
Before that, Imedi and other government-supporting media outlets “amplified stories with limited relevance to Georgia’s context, such as the marriage of UK armed forces minister Luke Pollard to his male partner”, according to a report by the Media Development Foundation, an NGO, entitled Sexist Hate Speech and Homophobia.
“Identical texts were shared across various government-aligned Facebook pages, featuring a wedding photo of the politician, accompanied by the caption: ‘British MP got married’ and the quote: ‘I’m a happy man because I get to call him my husband,’” the report said.
A spokesperson for Imedi TV said: “Although Imedi TV respects and often reflects the cultural conservatism of its viewers, it rejects any accusation of homophobia. The channel believes in individuals’ right to choose their own lifestyle.
“Imedi reported that the British embassy in Georgia attempted to fund media outlets and NGOs associated with opposition party leaders. That is a perfectly valid story to report. There was also information circulating about the embassy financing their trainings; we raised questions about this, but the British embassy left our inquiries unanswered.”
On the recent report from the embassy, the spokesperson said: “A meeting between any politician and an ambassador is important, especially when it comes to an opposition politician who is often supported by some ambassadors through their statements. If Nigel Farage was caught having an undeclared meeting with the US embassy in London to discuss the flag march, that would be all over the news.”
Imedi TV claims that while it is opposed to UNM taking back power, it also holds Georgian Dream to account.
It is against this background that a cross-party group of MPs in the UK, including Blair McDougall, a Labour MP who was recently made a minister, have been asking for the government to act.
James MacCleary, a Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, said: “Under Hunnewell’s control, Imedi TV has become a propaganda arm of the Georgian Dream government, parroting pro-Russian lines and attacking the democratic opposition. That is why I have pushed the government for months to bring sanctions against Bidzina Ivanishvili and his cronies, including Irakli Rukhadze [a co-founder of Hunnewell Partners].”
Hunnewell Partners has a controversial history and one that has been chronicled through the UK’s high court, court of appeal and supreme court. In February 2008, the previous owner of Imedi TV, the Georgian businessman Arkadi Patarkatsishvili, known as Badri, died of a heart attack. He was said to be worth £6bn but his wealth was hidden around the world.
A company called Salford Capital Partners sought to recover the funds for the grieving family, a process made more difficult by the emergence of a secret second wife in Moscow.
Apart from the chief executive of Salford Capital Partners, Eugene Jaffe, three other key individuals involved in the recovery were Rukhadze and Igor Alexeev, who are Georgian, and a British solicitor, Ben Marson.
There was a falling-out with Jaffe. Rukhadze, Alexeev and Marson split off, offering Badri’s family their services “after learning much of the very complex information about the location and nature of Badri’s assets”, according to a supreme court summary of the case.
The three directors of Hunnewell Partners were successfully sued for breach of fiduciary duty, although there was no finding of dishonesty.
Hunnewelll Partners was ordered to pay $134m plus interest. The court of appeal rejected its appeal and in March the supreme court dismissed an attempt to revise the duties and liabilities of fiduciaries.
In her original high court judgment in 2018, Mrs Justice Cockerill said she “formed the view that I have to treat the evidence of Mr Jaffe, Mr Rukhadze and to a slightly lesser extent Mr Alexeev and Mr Marson with considerable caution, because for these reasons even to the extent that the witnesses were honestly trying to assist I could not be confident that I was receiving accurate factual evidence”.
She described Rukhadze, a joint US-Georgian citizen who is also chair of Imedi’s supervisory board, and described by Hunnewell as “actively involved in all strategic decisions”, as an “unusually focused man with a strong sense of self-belief”.
after newsletter promotion
“I received the impression that he would not be overly concerned about lying in what he considered a good cause,” she said, “and indeed, in some respects I have concluded that his evidence was not truthful but constructed (sometimes on the hoof and inconsistently with the case put by his legal team) on the basis that he perceived that this would be most helpful to his case.”
Of Marson, who recently changed his name to Marson-Knight, the judge said his demeanour suggested he was “trying to assist the court” but “at points it appeared to me that he had persuaded himself of a position which was not, looked at objectively, credible”.
She went on: “At others I was regretfully persuaded that despite his professional status he was prepared to be less than candid during his evidence. I also note that his casual approach to the erroneous use of statements of truth on the defences indicated that his conduct fell below the levels that one would expect for a qualified solicitor.”
Marsons’s claims in court in relation to the status of his employment before the founding of Hunnewell Partners was described as “little short of incredible and drives a conclusion that his evidence in this respect was not honest”.
A spokesperson for Hunnewell said: “Your extracts above are very narrow quotes from hundreds of pages of findings and seek to unfairly paint the Hunnewell Partners in a negative light.”
Badri’s family transferred Imedi TV to Hunnewell Partners 2021 and in March this year a young British journalist, Will Neal, had an article published in the Byline Times examining the company’s ownership and past client list.
Imedi TV and other pro-government channels subsequently aired claims that suggested Neal was part of the “deep state”, apparently on the basis that he had been given a grant from the Civil Society Foundation, a Georgian NGO that was formerly part of the Open Society group, founded by the the financier George Soros.
After leaving the country for personal and business meetings, Neal was blocked at the border as he sought to return. He is appealing against the decision but has as yet not been given a reason for this treatment. There is no suggestion that Hunnewell Partners played a role.
“I know for a fact that the issue was raised by the UK ambassador with the Georgian foreign minister, but I don’t know that any … sort of reason was given diplomatically behind the scenes,” he said.
A spokesperson for Hunnewell Partners said: “Hunnewell Partners had no involvement whatsoever in Georgia’s decision to deny Will Neal entry into Georgia. This action also occurred without our prior knowledge. The first we learned of the incident was through media reporting.
“We have neither the desire nor the power to inconvenience a journalist in that way. Nor does any of Hunnewell’s affiliates. We actively support and promote the principle of a free and independent press in every jurisdiction, and are perfectly happy to accept scrutiny that is unbiased and based on the facts.”
Georgia’s foreign affairs ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
The British government has enacted sanctions against some Georgian politicians, businessmen and officials, including the country’s general prosecutor, but civil society groups and opposition figures want more.
The UK’s position as a safe haven for wealthy people is said by opposition figures to give it greater leverage over the Georgian government, including Ivanishvili, who the Pandora Papers leak in 2021 showed had registered 12 companies in the British Virgin Islands between 1998 and 2016.
Hunnewell Partners is a co-investor with a private equity fund founded by Ivanishvili in a Georgian cement company. Rukhadze has already been put under sanctions by Ukraine and Lithuania.
A Hunnewell spokesperson said: “These measures are not based on any proper assessment of the facts and stem from a smear campaign launched by figures in the Georgian opposition and the previous president Mikheil Saakashvili, who seized Imedi TV and put it under state control during his reign.
“They are targeting Irakli Rukhadze in an attempt to suppress the most popular TV station in Georgia because it opposes their return to power.”
Of the business link, the spokesperson added: “There’s an indirect business relationship with Ivanishvili via one investment, the cement company. Nothing very unusual, given [Ivanishvili’s] prominence in Georgian business.”
He added that Hunnewell’s directors had taken precautions to not violate sanctions imposed on Russia with Rukhadze having resigned from the board of Rissa, a Russian bottled water company where he’d been a director for 20 years.
For some, the case of Hunnewell Partners is a test as to the British government’s resolve over Georgia’s future as a democracy. Sandro Kevkhishvili, the anti-corruption programme manager at Transparency International Georgia, said: “Rukhadze is not formally a member of Georgian Dream but he is, as he says, a supporter. It is a political actor. So what is the British government’s position on this? That is the question. And using a sanctions mechanism of some kind is definitely one way of dealing with it.”
Giorgi Kandelaki, a former member of parliament and now a researcher at the Soviet Past Research Laboratory, said Georgia’s transformation mattered.
“What is unfolding in Georgia is not just another instance of democratic backsliding in a distant country,” he said. “Georgia’s trajectory carries a profound geopolitical weight: a nation once counted among the west’s most committed allies is now being taken over by the enemies of freedom.”
