US secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross sold shares he owned in a New York-listed shipping company just days before the publication of an article that revealed the company’s ties to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
Documents released by the US Office of Government Ethics on Monday show Mr Ross took a “short” position worth between $100,001 and $250,000 in Navigator Holdings on October 31.
The move came just days before the November 5 publication of a New York Times article linking Mr Ross and Navigator to Gennady Timchenko, a Russian oligarch and judo partner of Mr Putin who is the subject of US sanctions.
The article was part of the Paradise Papers investigation conducted by the Times with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Also linked to Navigator was Mr Putin’s son-in-law, Kirrill Shamalov, who is married to the Russian president’s youngest daughter.
Mr Ross closed the short position on November 7, 2017, after the article was published, according to his filings. Navigator’s shares fell only marginally during the period he held the short position.
In a statement sent to the Financial Times, Mr Ross said the short position was unrelated to the article. Rather, it was part of the broader divestment of the Navigator stake he began after being appointed commerce secretary.
After beginning to sell Navigator shares in May last year, he discovered some he did not previously know he owned, which were in an account the company had opened for him “in electronic form”, he said. The short sale was the technical mechanism he used to sell out as soon as he realised he had them.
“I decided to continue selling those shares, but since I did not have physical possession of them in order to make delivery in the required time period, I technically sold them short and, when the shares were delivered by the agent on November 16, I delivered those shares to the broker to close out the transaction,” Mr Ross said. “Therefore, it made no economic difference to me whether the shares went up or down between the sale date and the date I delivered them.”
One of the journalists involved in the Times article said on Monday that the reporting team had approached Mr Ross with a list of questions for comment on Thursday, October 26, 2017, indicating the commerce secretary and his staff knew that the article was just days away from publication.
The short position and other questions about the former Wall Street turnround artist’s personal wealth were reported on Monday by Forbes Magazine. Last year, the magazine knocked Mr Ross off its annual billionaires’ list after accusing him of misleading statements about his net worth.
In a statement, the commerce department said Mr Ross continued to follow the guidance of its ethics officials “to ensure compliance with federal laws and regulations”.
It said the new financial disclosure documents released on Monday had been certified by both commerce department ethics officials and the Office of Government Ethics, evidence that Mr Ross had not broken any laws or regulations.
The documents were first filed by Mr Ross in November and December of last year and certified by a department official on January 18, 2018. They were not given certification by the Office of Government Ethics until Monday, however, just hours before they were released following the publication of the Forbes report.
A spokeswoman for the Office of Government Ethics declined to comment on why the documents’ certification and release had been delayed, though one document showed that some of the data contained in it had been revised only on Friday last week.
According to the agency’s guidelines, financial disclosure documents filed by presidential appointees are supposed to be approved and released within 60 days, although an official said that was a goal rather than a deadline and reviews sometimes took longer.
