British digger manufacturer JCB, owned and controlled by billionaire Bamford Family, continued to manufacture and supply equipment for Russia’s market even after claiming it had stopped all exports due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion Ukraine.
Russian customs records reveal that JCB – whose owners are major Conservative Party donors – continued to offer new products to Russian dealers long after the 2 March 2022 date when the company announced publicly that it “voluntarily paused its exports”.
The data raises concerns about the accuracy of JCB’s statements regarding its business in Russia, its relationship with Lonmadi (based in Moscow) and its former owner, UK-based JVM Group.
JCB has said repeatedly that it will stop exporting to Russia and JVM after the 2 March 2022 –, less than a month after Putin sent troops to Ukraine.
Customs records compiled by a provider of trade data show that dozens of vehicles worth millions of pounds were supplied to Russian companies after this date.
The Staffordshire-based manufacturer admitted, when the samples of these records were presented to it, that JVM continued collecting diggers from JCB factories months after the voluntary pause. But they said that this was due to contractual requirements.
JCB confirmed that some equipment was still being manufactured after this date.
JCB lawyers stated: “Any collection by a JVM Company after 2 March 2020 was pursuant contractual obligations that were already entered and completed, or substantially completed before this date.”
The company denied that its public statements were inconsistent or inaccurate.
JCB chair Anthony Bamford is 78 years old and one of the UK Conservative Party’s largest donors. He’s also a close ally of Boris Johnson and a financial supporter.
Lord Bamford became a Conservative peer before retiring in 2013. Bamford’s dad, Joseph Cyril Bamford founded the business. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, the family has a net worth of £5,9bn.
JCB is one of the largest privately owned businesses in the UK. It has 22 factories in India, China and other countries. It had a significant presence in Russia when the invasion occurred in February 2022.
In recent months, the Bamford business dealings were also scrutinized after reports that Lord Bamford and Mark Bamford could be hit by a bill of more than £500m for settling a lengthy tax investigation conducted by HM Revenue and Customs.
JCB’s products are sold all over the globe, but a substantial – if not quantified – portion of them were made in Russia prior to the invasion of Ukraine. Bamford, through his lawyers, stated that he supported the UK’s position towards Russia after the invasion. JCB lawyers stated that the company had taken “voluntary measures to pause the manufacturing and supply of new order to Russia” from 2 March 2022 – a period when there were no sanctions in place.
The company also said that it closed an assembly plant and other business activities in Russia at a considerable cost and that “it suffered a very substantial economic loss” as a result of its voluntary actions. The company also offered to host 70 Ukrainian refugees at its homes in Staffordshire.
Max Skillman, a Briton who owned Lonmadi, and JVM, a company that was also owned by Max Skillman, increased JCB’s business in Russia. The dealership, which traded under the names Lonmadi, Kwintmadi, employed more than 1,000 employees, mostly in Russia. Skillman briefly became one of Britain’s richest businessmen. JCB sales in Russia increased after Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.
The Observer reported in July 2022 that Lonmadi had been dealing with a Gazprombank subsidiary, which is an arm of Russian gas company, and was under UK sanctions. Skillman’s lawyer said that at the time he hadn’t broken any sanctions laws.
Skillman, via his attorney, stated that JVM divested itself on April 4, 2022 of “all its beneficial interests in Lonmadi” and any involvement in the management or operation of Lonmadi.
JCB also has repeatedly stated that it has severed ties with Russia. JCB lawyers informed the Observer in July 2022 that exports to Lonmadi, JVM and other companies had ceased after 2 March 2022. The lawyers wrote that “JCB hasn’t since that date provided any machinery to dealer”, referring specifically to JVM. The company added that any JCB equipment that the dealer sold after March 2022 was stock it already held before that date. JCB had no control over that stock.
After initial inquiries made in February of this year, lawyers from JCB confirmed that the dealer relationship between JCB and JSC Lonmadi ended in March 2022.
The data collected from customs shows that shipments continued to arrive at Lonmadi even after this point. There were 128 shipments in July 2022. The data shows that 27 more shipments were delivered to Lonmadi in August 2022 – a full month after JCB was asked by the Observer about their relationship with Lonmadi.
Customs records, for example, show that a JCB 205 Skid Steer Digger arrived in Russia at Lonmadi on 9 August 2022. The database on JCB’s website lists a “build date” of 29 April 2020 for the digger. The serial number of the vehicle, when compared to customs data, JCB database and other sources, indicates that it was manufactured in JCB factory in Rajasthan in India. Since the Guardian’s inquiry, public access to JCB’s database is restricted.
JCB’s attorneys confirmed that JVM ordered the digger in 2021. The digger was manufactured on 24 February 2022 (the exact day that Russia began its full-scale invasion in Ukraine) and completed on 28 march 2022. This was weeks after the voluntary export pause was announced.
JCB confirmed that in another case, the digger manufactured in China for a Russian smaller dealer in 2021, was finished on 7th March 2022. This was five days after a voluntary ban.
Customs records indicate that it arrived in Russia 5 months later. Lawyers for the company confirmed that the other JCB items that were in data came from their Shanghai factory in July of 2022. The company said that the orders were placed before 2 March 2022 and that the Covid-19 lockdown may have caused the delay.
The data collected from the electronic database of Russia’s customs was originally sourced from legal trade documents -, which were recorded in bills of lading -. The data provides granular information about the amount of JCB products that entered Russia. It includes commodity codes, which are used to classify trade across borders, serial numbers, and a Russian language description of the product.
JCB, through its law firm Schillings admitted that it continued to provide its products to JVM even after the 2 March 2022 invasion. It said that this was to fulfill contracts signed before the invasion. Lawyers said that the collection of products from a factory by a customer in connection with a contract entered into before 2 March 2022 was not equivalent to exporting goods to Russia or acting contrary to their statements.
The argument was that the Russian invasion of Ukraine did not justify “frustration” or “termination” of contracts with dealers because it made it impossible for them to fulfill their contractual obligations.
JCB’s lawyers also questioned the validity of some data. They said that the data appeared to “merely record shipment of a client-manufactured product”. Lawyers added that the data “does not demonstrate that our clients had any direct involvement in facilitating export of these products to Russia, and even less that it benefited financially from those alleged imports”.
JCB’s attorneys said that they did not find any evidence that their public statements were inconsistent or inaccurate. The lawyers also stated that the majority of examples cited are contracts with “non Russian dealers”, which do not fall under JCB policy or sanctions.
Skillman’s lawyer said that he did not have access the the records of JVM, as the companies are no longer in business. He declined to answer any further questions or comment.
Lonmadi declined to answer any questions but stated that Skillman was no longer a client of the company.
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