We are very grateful to Chris Bryant MP for making his statement in Parliament today.

In May 2018, Mr Bryant and others made false allegations about our founding partner, Mr Chandler, in the House of Commons under the protection of parliamentary privilege.

Mr Bryant has now accepted that he was wrong, telling MPs in a Westminster Hall debate today:

“On 8 March I wrote a letter to the Foreign Secretary following her appearance the previous day before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. I also published the letter on my Twitter feed. I wrote to her in order to address an allegation she made that I had obstructed the progress of sanctions legislation through Parliament. In the letter I quoted from various speeches made in Parliament, one of which included allegations made in 2018 against Christopher Chandler. It was not my intention to repeat those allegations which I accept have subsequently been disproved. I am happy to have set the record straight today in Parliament and regret any distress caused.”

Mr Bryant also published a Tweet in similar terms: click here.

This debate was led by Bob Seely MP, the MP who originally made the allegations in Parliament in 2018.

Richard Walton, the former head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, has said that "the allegations made in the House of Commons are totally false" and "the allegations and insinuations of wrongdoing quoted by the MPs in Parliament have no basis whatsoever." It is reassuring at last to see the MPs themselves now coming forward to admit how ridiculous these allegations are.

The reason today’s statement by Mr Bryant is important is that it will help us to protect and build upon Mr Chandler’s and Legatum’s heretofore unblemished reputation and global charitable endeavours.

In 1991, Mr Chandler started his philanthropic journey, and since then has supported well over 1,600 humanitarian projects in over 100 countries around the world. Some of these have grown into some of the world’s most innovative and largest humanitarian initiatives in their space, like the END Fund (de-worming), Freedom Fund (combatting modern day slavery and human trafficking) and the Luminos Fund (getting refugee and out of school kids back into the classroom).

Mr Chandler and Legatum have not only supported these initiatives, but founded them, funded them, incubated them, and worked together with a global network of philanthropists and front-line organisations to scale them into major initiatives which have changed the lives of millions for the better.

The false allegations, originally made in Parliament, put Legatum’s mission to “help others prosper” at risk. Thankfully, with today’s admission in Parliament that the allegations have been disproved and the widespread acceptance that they were “totally false” when made, we can finally to put these distractions and falsehoods behind us. We look forward to working with Mr Bryant and others to help solve the very real and practical problems that people face in their everyday lives, and to spread prosperity to all four corners of the globe.

Mark Stoleson
Partner and Chief Executive Officer

You can see Mr Bryant’s comments by clicking here and read the Hansard debate by clicking here.