A tech business run by Boris Johnson’s former Jennifer Arcuri, which had earned £11,500 from the London Mayor’s promotional agency, is to collapse after sliding £356,616 into the red.
The Innotech Network Limited (INL), which organized tech conferences, was awarded £11,500 by a promotional agency operated by the Greater London Authority while Mr Johnson was Mayor.
Due to their associations, the former prime minister was accused of favoring her financial interests, but the Independent Position for Police Conduct ruled that there were insufficient grounds for an investigation into possible misconduct in a public office.
INL was founded in 2013 by Ms. Arcuri, 37, who has since announced her intention to shut down the company and ask to have it “struck off” the Companies House Register.
She also resigned as a director of another firm embroiled in the controversy that threatened to topple Johnson when he was prime minister.
She is no longer listed as a director of Hacker House, which has debts of about £2 million, but paperwork reveal she still has “substantial influence” over the company.
The Department of Culture, Media, and Sport gave Hacker House, operated by Ms. Arcuri and her cyber specialist husband Matthew Hickey, a £100,000 grant in 2015, albeit it’s thought that only £47,000 was ultimately paid.
While he was mayor of London, Ms. Arcuri and Mr. Johnson started dating, and in her diaries, she noted Johnson’s encouragement of her business.
In one of them, he asked her: “How can I be your career’s impetus, throttle, or even just a footstep? How may I be of assistance to you?
She recalls him saying: “I can hardly contain myself anytime I see you,” in another journal note. You thrill me excessively. I couldn’t wait, baby. I’ve been waiting for you all year. every year. You made me crazy. You have been on my mind more than any other lady.
London & Partners, the mayor’s marketing organization, donated Innotech £10,000 in October 2013 to sponsor an Islamic economic summit, and then another £1,500 the following summer to promote an event in the House of Commons.
Ms. Arcuri participated in Mr. Johnson’s trade trip to Singapore and Malaysia in November 2014.
During his trade tour to New York in February 2015, she also encountered Mr. Johnson. She traveled to Tel Aviv as a representative on one eight months later.
On the same day that Arcuri moved to shutter INL, she also resigned as a director of Hacker House. At Hacker House, she is still identified as being in charge with co-director Hickey.
There was no evidence of a criminal offense committed by Boris Johnson, according to a report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct in 2020.
According to a study released by the GLA last month, L&P should address the possibility that excessive pressure from top officials and the mayor could damage its efforts.
While the IOPC investigation into the allegations against Boris Johnson found no evidence of a criminal offense, it did come to the conclusion that there was some evidence that Boris Johnson was in an intimate relationship with Jennifer Arcuri during some of the pertinent period, according to GLA member and head of the oversight committee Caroline Pidgeon.
“If he was in such a connection, omitting to disclose this as a conflict of interest might have violated the more general Nolan Principles, the moral standards persons working in the public sector are required to uphold,” the statement reads.