EXCLUSIVE

British foreign officials have privately expressed disquiet about Australia’s diplomatic post link to a shadowy security firm that sells intelligence to corporate clients.

Created by former MI6 British Secret Service agents, Hakluyt is an ultra secretive firm whose client list reads like a who’s who of the business world with corporations retaining their services for strategic intelligence and advice as they look to expand operations.

The group boasts it doesn’t offer “off the shelf” advice but rather uses a network of key operatives across the globe to instruct on a country, government, industry or company’s outlook and exploitable strengths and weaknesses.

Australian High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer had been on the advisory board of the London-headquartered firm since 2008 when he was a UN special envoy but was forced to give up the position when he was appointed to head the Australian diplomatic post in London in 2014.

But it can be revealed Mr Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client cocktail soiree at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.

His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation of the group which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.

Britain’s Foreign Office, that has several of its former diplomats working for Hakluyt and also has oversight of the MI6 spy agency that has many of its former operatives on Hakluyt’s books, has noted the attendances.

“The group operates in the shadows, it’s not exactly open and transparent and so any serving, and that’s the difference, serving diplomat with access to sensitive information and insight associating with the group raises a worry in Whitehall,” one diplomatic source told News Corp Australia.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to answer this newspaper’s seven written questions about the extent of Mr Downer’s dealings with the group but it sprang to his defence.

“Mr Downer has had no commercial relationship with Hakluyt since resigning from its advisory board in May 2014, prior to commencing duty as High Commissioner in London,” a spokeswoman said.

“Mr Downer maintains contact with a large number of individuals and firms in the British business community. This is common practice for an Australian High Commissioner in the UK.”

Mr Downer’s links to the group raised concerns in Australia in 2008, just months after he left parliament having served as the country’s longest serving foreign minister with access to top tier national secrets. His association was also noted in Greece and Turkey, where local media accused him of a conflict of interest, given he was also serving as a special envoy to the UN Secretary General for Cyprus, which is split between the two nations and in conflict over rich natural deposits that multinationals are clambering to be involved in exploring.

Hakluyt was caught out in 2001 funding a former German spy to infiltrate environmental groups in Europe allegedly on behalf of oil company clients and preparing analyses for an Australian mining group.

Most recently in 2012 it hit the headlines when one of its part-time investigators was murdered in a Chinese hotel room under mysterious circumstances involving a high-level Communist Party figure and claims of espionage.