Rishi Sunak: Calls for explanation over chancellor’s wife stake in company ‘operating in Russia’ | Politics News

Questions are being raised over whether a company in which Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s wife has a reported £400m stake is continuing to operate in Russia.

The Indian IT giant Infosys is still operating in Moscow, according to the Mirror, despite having announced it was closing its office in the Russian capital.

Mr Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, has a 0.93% stake in the business, which was founded by her father, though he retired in 2014 and has had no further involvement.

Early in April, a source at Infosys told the Guardian that the company was “in the process of urgently closing down its Russian operation” and “relocating staff to other countries”.

However, Labour said there were still questions for Mr Sunak to answer if his family was benefiting from a company that remained active in Russia.

A spokeswoman for Ms Murty said: “This is a matter for Infosys and should be addressed to them.

“Ms Murty is one of many minority shareholders and has no involvement in the operational decisions of the company.”

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Shadow treasury minister Tulip Siddiq said: “It is really important that the chancellor clarifies what is happening here and whether his immediate family is benefiting from Infosys’ continued presence in Russia.

“We can’t have a situation where a UK chancellor and his family maintain economic interests in the Putin regime.”

Infosys said: “As you are aware, during the quarterly results, Infosys announced its decision to transition services from Russia to its global delivery centres.

“While the company does not have any active relationships with local Russian enterprises, we have a small team of fewer than 100 employees in Russia, which services some of our global clients.

“We are currently working closely with those clients that are being impacted to enable a smooth transition.”

Last month Ms Murty, an Indian national, announced she would pay UK taxes on all her worldwide income after it was disclosed that she was non-domiciled in Britain for tax purposes.

A “non-dom” is a person lives in a country but is not legally domiciled in it, in some cases obtaining tax advantages in that country.

The disclosure, along with the revelation Mr Sunak retained a US green card while he was chancellor, was widely seen to have damaged her husband’s hopes of succeeding Boris Johnson as Tory leader.