Lord Mandelson with his host Jacob Rothschild in Corfu. The Business Secretary talked briefly about the Lockerbie bomber to the son of Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, who was also staying at the Rothschilds’ villa.

What really drove the release of ‘bomber’ Abdelbaset al-Megrahi? Compassion – or politics and trade deals? Was he even guilty? David Randall investigates

Independent | Aug 23, 2009

It’s a very long time since conspiracy theorists had a week as good as this one. The saga of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was already murky enough, but now, to the doubts about the evidence against him, the alleged multi-million payouts to the prime prosecution witness, and the far-from-told story of US and British intelligence involvement, we can add suggestions of secret talks and trade deals, and the possibility that his release was not done in the name of compassionate justice, but that of oil, financial services and hotel-building.

This weekend, suspicious minds don’t have to seek very far for the material to construct explanations other than the official ones. There is the meeting in 2007 between Colonel Gaddafi and Tony Blair, then still Prime Minister. Oil and gas deals mingled with the fate of Megrahi (then yet to be diagnosed with cancer), according to the Libyans. There’s the meeting between Gaddafi’s son and Peter Mandelson in the inevitable setting of a Rothschild villa. The Duke of York, batting for Britain as ever, is involved. There may have been, say some sources, many more meetings between British and Libyan officials – something which, one might think, a simple release on compassionate grounds would not warrant. There are British business leaders now openly rubbing their hands together at the suddenly revitalised opportunity for UK banks, oil interests, security contractors, and stores to move in on Libya’s considerable available funds.

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Sydney, Australia - Rothschild Australia and E3 International are set to become key players in the international carbon credit trading market, an emerging commodity market that analysts estimate could be worth up to US$150 billion by 2012.

In a move that will re-shape the fledgling emissions trading market, Rothschild Australia and E3 International today announced their intention to launch the Carbon Ring Consortium — an investment vehicle that will provide companies in the Asia Pacific Region with an innovative way of learning about and understanding their risks in the new carbon market.

The Carbon Ring Consortium is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific Region, and is the first in a series of private investment vehicles that Carbon Ring Pty Ltd will launch in coming years.

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Baron David de Rothschild, the head of the Rothschild bank. The Rothschilds have helped the British government since financing Wellington’s army to fight the French in 1815.

“We provide advice on both sides of the balance sheet, and we do it globally. There is no debate that Rothschild is a Jewish family, but we are proud to be in this region. However, it takes time to develop a global footprint.“

Banks will deleverage and there will be a new form of global governance.

UAE National | Nov 6, 2008

The first barons of banking

By Rupert Wright

Among the captains of industry, spin doctors and financial advisers accompanying British prime minister Gordon Brown on his fund-raising visit to the Gulf this week, one name was surprisingly absent. This may have had something to do with the fact that the tour kicked off in Saudi Arabia. But by the time the group reached Qatar, Baron David de Rothschild was there, too, and he was also in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Although his office denies that he was part of the official party, it is probably no coincidence that he happened to be in the same part of the world at the right time. That is how the Rothschilds have worked for centuries: quietly, without fuss, behind the scenes.

“We have had 250 years or so of family involvement in the finance business,” says Baron Rothschild. “We provide advice on both sides of the balance sheet, and we do it globally.”

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The Sunday Times - October 26, 2008

Nat Rothschild’s career path – from playboy to plutocrat – has to be seen against the backdrop of his family history, studded as it is with eccentrics who were torn between loyalty to an immense and powerful name and the urge to break away from the clan.

His grandfather, Victor Rothschild, who died in 1990 at 79, set the pattern for much of the family in both business and lifestyle. While still at Cambridge University, he was a playboy who drove fast cars, water-skiied off Monte Carlo and played first-class cricket for Northamptonshire.

He also joined the Apostles, the university’s secret society that included the traitors Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. It was Victor who lent Blunt – later surveyor of the Queen’s paintings – the money to buy his first Poussin. When Blunt’s treachery was eventually exposed, Rothschild denied that he was the “Fifth Man” in the spy ring, famously stating: “I am not and never have been a Soviet agent.” This was never seriously in doubt: his work for MI5 during the war had won him a George Medal.

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Andy McSmith - 23 October 2008

Nat Rothschild, the financier at the centre of allegations that threaten to engulf the shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, is no stranger to laws which forbid politicians from accepting donations from abroad.

Political donations from overseas are also illegal in the US, where John McCain’s campaign team is under investigation for allegedly accepting a benefit in kind from two mega-rich British citizens, namely Nat Rothschild and his father, Jacob, the Fourth Baron Rothschild.

In April, Mr McCain passed through London and spoke at a fund-raising dinner for expatriate Americans, where seats at the cheapest tables cost £500 a head. What caught the eye of Judicial Watch, a Washington-based foundation dedicated to combating corruption, was that the event was held “by kind permission of Lord Rothschild and Hon Nathaniel Rothschild” at the family home in Spencer House, St James’s, the only privately owned 17th-century palace in central London.

The US Federal Election Committee is still investigating the allegation that Mr McCain’s campaign team broke electoral law by accepting a benefit in kind from the Rothschilds. “We haven’t heard from the FEC yet, and don’t expect to until after the campaign,” Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch said.

The Rothschild family and politics have been intertwined for generations, ever since Nathan Rothschild, who founded the English branch of the family business, financed Britain’s war against Napoleon two centuries ago. Nathan was the son of Mayer Rothschild, who founded the family business in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt during the 18th century.

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Lina Saigol - September 23 2008

The turmoil in the financial services industry is proving to be a major opportunity for two blue-chip institutions that stayed focused on providing independent advice, Lazard and NM Rothschild.

They steered clear of the complex financing deals that have left their bulge-bracket rivals with wounded balance sheets and preserved their reputations for providing strong strategic counsel, untainted by cross-selling.

Now, both groups are prospering as rivals seek help and the economic cycle brings their other great strength, restructuring practices, to the fore.

As jobs in the sector are shed by the thousands, Rothschild and Lazard are seeing advisory revenues soar.

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