I’m not a Russian spy: Boss of notorious City short-seller reacts furiously after Labor MP questions Kremlin ties
A row erupted after a prominent Labor MP demanded an investigation into a notorious city shortseller’s ties to Russia.
Liam Byrne, a former Treasury chief secretary, has claimed Fraser Perring, the boss of Viceroy Research, was “a not infrequent visitor to Moscow” and accused him of working “hand in glove” with another outfit, Boatman Capital , to launch a short-selling. attack on the British defense group Babcock.
In his speech to the House of Commons, Byrne called for a debate on “the activities of short-selling attack group Viceroy Research and its leader Fraser Perring.” He added: “We must ensure that short selling groups are not another weapon in Putin’s arsenal.
“Where there are links between attack groups that go short and the Kremlin, we need to know.”
Questions: Liam Byrne (left), a former Chief Secretary of the Treasury, has claimed that Viceroy Research boss Fraser Perring (right) was ‘a not infrequent visitor to Moscow’
The comments, made last month but only now coming to light, sparked a furious response from 49-year-old Perring.
“It’s nonsense,” he told the Mail. “I am not a Russian spy. He could have done serious damage to my family.’
Perring also claimed he has received calls asking about Byrne’s comments.
Byrne, 52, declined to comment. The Labor MP said he was told Viceroy was working with Boatman to attack Babcock while it was overhauling British nuclear submarines.
He also said Viceroy was “targeting” homeless landlord Home REIT, which has been suspended from trading on the stock market over an investigation into its finances.
Viceroy published a report on Home REIT last November that accused it of overpaying for properties and misrepresenting the financial health of tenants.
Since then, Home REIT has been caught up in escalating crises and is under investigation by the National Crime Agency amid allegations of bribery. It also faces a potential lawsuit amid allegations that it misled shareholders.
But in a letter to the MP who perused the Mail, Perring’s lawyers said neither he nor Viceroy “have ever worked with Boatman Capital” and were not involved in a short-selling attack on Babcock. They denied Home REIT was targeted, saying Perring simply “asked questions and exposed the company’s failures.”
The letter also stated that Perring had “never been to Moscow” and that there were “no ties” to the Kremlin. “To accuse him of doing Putin and the Russian government’s dirty work and thereby endangering this country whose activities deserve parliamentary attention is a very serious accusation,” he said.
Perring has also demanded that Byrne officially say in parliament that the allegations were baseless. Viceroy said Byrne’s allegations were “laughable and demonstrably false.”
Mr Byrne’s ridiculous allegations in the Houses of Parliament are wholly false and have no basis in fact. Any further allegations from Russian spy links are completely false and uninformed,” it added.
Viceroy also said it would write the parliamentary standards committee about Byrne’s comments.
Byrne, an MP from Birmingham, was Chief Secretary of the Treasury under Gordon Brown before Labor was voted out in the 2010 general election.
He got a lot of attention when he left a note saying there was “no more money.”
Despite being a joke, the note was confiscated by the Conservatives and used repeatedly to attack Labour’s economic record. Byrne said the note was something he would regret forever.
Perring became known as one of the loudest voices to raise the alarm about German payments group Wirecard, which collapsed in 2020 following an accounting scandal that saw the CEO arrested and the Chief Operating Officer go into hiding.