Lobbying firm co-founded by former U.K. ambassador Mandelson halts operations over Epstein fallout

Peter Mandelson leaving his home in Wiltshire, England, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (Ben Birchall/PA via AP)

LONDON — The lobbying firm co-founded by Peter Mandelson, a former U.K. ambassador to the United States, collapsed into a form of bankruptcy Friday in the wake of the scandal surrounding his links to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Global Counsel said it had halted operations and that roughly 80 U.K.-based staff were being laid off after many customers cut ties with the company following revelations about the scale of Mandelson’s friendship with the disgraced financier, who died in a New York prison in 2019. The company has around 130 employees worldwide.

Mandelson, who jointly set up Global Counsel in 2010 after the Labour Party was ejected from power, resigned from its board in 2024 and sold his shares in it earlier this month in an apparent attempt to insulate the company from the scandal engulfing him.

Administrators at consulting firm Interpath have been appointed to consider options for the business and to review its assets.

“While Global Counsel had grown over the past 15 years to become one of the U.K.’s leading public affairs consultancies, the rapid and sudden loss of clients over recent weeks has had a monumental impact on the business,” said Will Wright, U.K. chief executive of Interpath and joint administrator.

Within the millions of pages of files related to Epstein that were released by the U.S. Justice Department, emails indicated that Mandelson passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to his self-proclaimed “best pal” in 2009, when he was a leading member of the then-Labour government.

They also included records of payments totaling US$75,000 in 2003 and 2004 from Epstein to accounts linked to Mandelson or his husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva. Mandelson has questioned the authenticity of the bank statements. In a letter to Labour in resigning from the party, Mandelson said he had no recollection of receiving that money and would investigate.

Following the release of the Epstein-related documents, police searched Mandelson’s London home and another property linked to him.

The U.K. police investigation into Mandelson centers on potential misconduct in public office, and Mandelson is not accused of any sexual offenses. On Thursday, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on the same suspicion but related to his years as a trade envoy for the U.K.

The appointment of Mandelson to the plum diplomatic job nearly cost British Prime Minister Keir Starmer his job as questions swirled around his judgment. Mandelson’s decades-long career has been clouded with controversy and included two resignations from Tony Blair’s governments at the turn of the century.

Barely nine months after the appointment, Starmer fired Mandelson in September after an earlier batch of emails was published showing he had remained friends with Epstein even after the late financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses involving a minor.

The government plans to release files related to the vetting process that it hopes will exonerate Starmer and show Mandelson lied.

Pan Pylas, The Associated Press