Infosys to ‘urgently’ shut Moscow office as pressure grows on Rishi Sunak
Indian IT services company Infosys, in which the chancellor Rishi Sunak’s wife owns an estimated £690m stake and collects about £11.5m in annual dividends, is “urgently” closing its office in Russia.
Infosys’s decision to shut its Moscow office comes as pressure mounts on Sunak to answer accusations that his family is collecting “blood money” dividends from the firm’s continued operation in Russia despite the invasion of Ukraine.
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”.
An Infosys spokesperson declined to comment, and would not be drawn on whether the decision to close the Russian office was linked to the political pressure on Sunak.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, earlier on Friday called on the chancellor to reveal whether his family had been “benefiting from money made in Russia when the government has put in place sanctions” on firms and individuals following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sunak, who has repeatedly called on British companies to pull out of Russia in order to “inflict maximum economic pain” on Putin’s regime, had refused to comment on his wife Akshata Murthy’s 0.91% stake in Infosys.
Speaking to the BBC’s Newscast after a challenging week in which his spring statement met with heavy criticism, he said it was “very upsetting and … wrong for people to try and come at my wife”.
Sunak drew parallels with Will Smith, who hit the comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars on Sunday after a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, as well as the beleaguered England cricket captain, Joe Root.
The chancellor quipped: “Someone said, ‘Joe Root, Will Smith, and me – not the best of weekends for
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