SEC Filing: Dominion Received $400 Million From Swiss Account Linked to China.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a report stating that Dominion Voting Systems received a payment of $400 million from a Swiss bank account with ties to the Chinese Communist Party [1].

The payment was made to Staple Street Capital, a middle-market private equity firm based in New York, who acquired Dominion Voting Systems in 2018. The payment was made by UBS Securities LLC, who are a subsidiary company of the Swiss investment bank UBS.

An investment bank can act as a ‘middleman’ for clients to either carry out or hold a purchase on behalf of clients – so they can represent a client’s interests in their actions on the market. UBS Securities LLC is a private firm and thus does not need to disclose the details of any of its shareholders.

 Despite UBS Securities LLC being a New York-based company, three of the four board members are Chinese. One of these board members has worked for the Chinese Communist Party’s central bank and the entirely government-owned Bank of China.

 UBS is also the first foreign bank to be provided with a fully-licenced securities venture in China - an otherwise heavily regulated financial market. The facilitator of this deal was Wang Qishan, former mayor of Beijing, who is viewed as the most financially competent Communist Party official.

 UBS is one of a collection of Western banks which has previously been known to act as a middleman in setting up companies and trusts on behalf of officials of the Chinese Communist Party. It is generally believed that this is done to conceal the original owners of the wealth.

 The SEC filing shows Dominion Voting Systems received two payments, $400 million this October and $200 million in 2014 (another election year). Both from the New York-based subsidiary.

 Perhaps anticipating a coming scandal, 12 of the 15 UBS board of directors have resigned as of December 6th [2].

[1] - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1827586/000182758620000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

[2] - https://www.ntd.com/400-million-sec-filing-links-dominion-ubs-and-china_536295.html