Hakluyt & Company

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Hakluyt & Company is a British corporate investigation firm. It was founded in 1995 by Christopher James, a former MI6 officer, and Christopher Wilkins, a businessman and former Welsh Guards officer.

The firm's advisory board has included many high-profile figures in British industry and government, including William Purves, the former HSBC chairman; Peter Holmes, the former Shell chairman; Brian Cubbon, the former permanent under-secretary of state at the Home Office; Peter Cazalet, former deputy chairman of BP; Lord Inge, former Chief of the General Staff; Lord Trotman, former chairman and chief executive of Ford; Baroness Smith, widow of the former Labour leader; and Frank G. Wisner, former U.S. ambassador to India. More recent appointees include Bill Bradley, the former U.S. presidential candidate; Rod Eddington, the former CEO of British Airways; Chris Gent, the former chief executive of Vodafone; and Ralph Robins, the former Rolls-Royce CEO.

In 2001 the Sunday Times reported that documentary film-maker Manfred Schlickenrieder was paid by Hakluyt to investigate Greenpeace on behalf of BP, and other environmental groups on behalf of Shell. Schlickenrieder had previously worked for Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, the German intelligence agency.

Hakluyt maintains a relationship with the American consultancy Kissinger Associates, led by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.