Cambridge Analytica-linked businessman helped start Black Cube, lawsuit claims - http://archive.is/fHVST

Vincent Tchenguiz, an Iranian-born British entrepreneur and property tycoon who until 2015 was the largest shareholder in the parent company of the scandal-hit data firm Cambridge Analytica, also played a prominent role in the founding stages of the controversial Israeli business intelligence company Black Cube, and provided it with vital funding, according to a 2013 Israeli lawsuit filed by lawyers for Tchenguiz.

..Black Cube, which was founded in 2011 and whose former honorary board president was the late Mossad chief Meir Dagan, has been at the center of considerable international press scrutiny in recent months. Many of the company’s reported behind-the-scenes activities — including its work in Romania, its work on an election campaign in Hungary (where it denies involvement), its involvement in the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and its activities relating to the Iran nuclear deal, when it allegedly conducted a “dirty ops” campaign against former Obama administration officials — have made headlines worldwide....The 2013 Israeli lawsuit was brought by a private company, Vincos Ltd., of which Tchenguiz was the beneficial owner. In the suit, filed in Tel Aviv District Court, Tchenguiz claims that the setting up of Black Cube was partly his initiative.

...In addition, Tchenguiz allowed the UK branch of Black Cube to operate from a London office he owned for the nominal monthly rent of one British pound, the suit states.

...On March 23, 2013, Vincos Ltd., a British company owned by Tchenguiz, sued the defendants B.C. Strategy Ltd., also known as Black Cube Israel, its daughter company B.C. Strategy UK Ltd (Black Cube UK), the company’s founders Zorella and Yanus, and an additional employee, in Tel Aviv District Court....According to the complaint, Tchenguiz says he met Zorella in 2010 when the latter was an employee of a business intelligence firm called Businessscope. Businessscope was founded in May 2010 and its initial directors were Shai Schiller, Itay Yonat and Doron Dabby, later to be joined by Gadi Aviran, all of whom are well-known figures in Israel’s WebInt (web intelligence) industry. (These latter four names are cited on the relevant Israeli corporate documents. Apart from the claims in the lawsuit, there is no evidence of which The Times of Israel is aware that Zorella was a Businessscope employee.)

According to the complaint, a company owned by Tchenguiz held a 17 percent ownership stake in Businessscope. On March 10, 2011, when the British Serious Fraud Office raided Tchenguiz’s home and office — on suspicions that he had conspired to cause the collapse of Iceland’s Kaupthing Bank in 2008 — Tchenguiz turned to Businessscope, he said, and specifically to Dan Zorella, to help him fight the allegations....The Trump Soho was funded in part by Iceland’s FL Group

...What is clear, however, is that from 2005 to 2015 Vincent Tchenguiz was SCL Group’s largest shareholder. During this period, in 2014 and 2015, SCL Group held meetings with Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil company, according to the New York Times. Lukoil is under US sanctions and has strong Kremlin ties.

June 2019 :

Secretive Black Cube sues Israeli investigative journalist for $19 million - https://www.timesofisrael.com/secretive-black-cube-sues-israeli-investigative-journalist-for-19-million/

The Black Cube intelligence firm has filed a £15 million ($19 million) lawsuit in the UK against Israeli investigative journalist Ilana Dayan after she broadcast an exposé on some of the alleged workings of the secretive company.

Following the airing of Channel 12’s “Uvda” program on Thursday, in which Dayan claimed that one of Israel’s richest men hired Black Cube in 2014 to dig up dirt on Blue and White party No. 2 Yair Lapid, Dayan revealed fresh allegations on Friday, including an attempt to derail a reform in the communications sector and to discredit a leading Israeli businesswoman.

In the fresh allegations broadcast Friday, Dayan said Black Cube agents had been hired by the nation’s largest telecom provider, Bezeq, to try and derail 2014’s so-called Wholesale Market Reform, which introduced serious telecommunications competition for the company. According to Dayan, in March 2014 an international consulting firm hired by Israel’s Communications Ministry was invited to a meeting in the Dorcherster Hotel in London, where the company was allegedly pressed by Black Cube agents in an attempt to try and discredit it and disrupt the reform. Bezeq did not deny the report to Channel 12, but said that sort of behavior was no longer acceptable within the company and belonged to a different time. Black Cube denied it had worked to stymie any reforms.

..Efforts to stymie the reform are also at the heart of the Case 4000 investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though the two are apparently unrelated, “Uvda” noted.

In Thursday’s report, Dayan alleged that tycoon Idan Ofer at one point hired the firm to probe then-finance minister Lapid and other top officials as part of Ofer’s efforts to influence tax policy on natural gas finds.

Ofer, a billionaire with vast holdings in shipping, drilling and mining industries, reportedly paid Black Cube to help him undermine an advisory panel appointed by Lapid that was aiming to raise taxes on his lucrative natural resources company, according to the TV investigation. The idea was to smear Lapid and the arbitrators in order to evade high taxes on profits.

Thursday’s investigation also explored Black Cube’s ties to former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who reportedly used the company’s services to suppress opposition activists.

Idan Ofer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idan_Ofer

He is the majority shareholder of Pacific Drilling, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Israel Corporation, listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, as well as Kenon Holdings, listed on both stock exchanges. He made the largest donation to a British business school ever in 2013...He has a brother, Eyal Ofer...

In 1989, he was the founder of the Tanker Pacific, now the largest privately owned tanking fleet globally.[7] He is the Principal of the Quantum Pacific Group, a Guernsey-based holding corporation....He serves on the Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Dean's Council of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[7][8] With Richard Branson and others, he is a co-founder of the Carbon War Room, a think tank on climate change based in Washington, D.C.

His fourth wife is Batia Ofer, a philanthropist,[10][21] who serves on the advisory board of Sotheby's.