The Charity Commission has closed a preliminary investigation into concerns about governance at a charity set up by the UK’s richest person, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, which helped fund a £16m luxury clubhouse for an exclusive French Alps club where he and his daughter have skied for years.
The UK charity watchdog announced on Thursday that it had closed its “regulatory compliance case” into the Jim Ratcliffe Foundation after finding that “the charity’s activities further its purposes and that there is no further role for the regulator”.
However, the regulator raised concerns that all the charity’s trustees “are employed by companies that Sir Jim Ratcliffe is connected to”, and warned that this “may cause a perception of bias or lack of independence which is a risk to the charity’s reputation”.
Ratcliffe, 70, is the richest person in the UK with a £12.8bn fortune, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index. A tax exile who moved to Monaco in 2019, Ratcliffe controls the petrochemicals and fracking company Ineos and is in the running to buy Manchester United.
In January the watchdog launched a preliminary investigation into “whether grant funding provided by the charity towards construction of Club Des Sports Courchevel’s (CDS) ski clubhouse was in furtherance of its charitable purposes”.
Ratcliffe’s charity provided grants totalling €12.5m (£10.7m) to the CDS toward the construction of the ski clubhouse building, which opened in December 2021.
The clubhouse includes an exclusive members’ club known as the Courchevel Ski Club (CSC) that charges €25,000 to join alongside an annual fee of €6,000. The club described itself as “an exclusive and prestigious club which brings together its members around common passions: skiing, pleasure and the art of living”.
The regulator said on Thursday that it “now understands that the high-fee club only uses 4% of the clubhouse and that the CDS receives the income generated from this membership”.
It added: “The commission is satisfied that the facilities and ski programme operated by CDS furthers the charity’s purposes with other trading activities undertaken to generate income.
“The regulator has therefore determined that the decision taken by the charity to provide funding met the public benefit test. Changes have since been made to the website of CDS to make the charitable benefit they provide clearer.”
The regulator said it had raised concerns about the lack of independent trustees at the charity, “highlighting that while no conflict of loyalty has been identified, the public may believe one to exist.
“This has been acknowledged by the trustees who have agreed to take steps to appoint at least one trustee who is not employed by a company connected to Sir Jim Ratcliffe.”
Tracy Howarth, assistant director of casework at the Charity Commission, said: “We welcome the decision taken by trustees to agree to appointing another member to their board and thank them for their cooperation. We have found no evidence to uphold allegations made against the charity and as such, there is no further role for us at this time.”
