Cambridge Analytica is dead – but its obscure network is alive and well

Extract from The Guardian

Cambridge Analytica

 

The Cambridge Analytica Files

The company’s executives have formed a web of linked companies, suggesting its work will continue

Wendy Siegelman

Sat 5 May 2018 22.05 AEST Last modified on Sat 5 May 2018 23.44 AEST

Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica, in March. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

The announcement that Cambridge Analytica is shutting has a certain inevitability to it. Ever since 17 March 2018, when Carole Cadwalladr broke Christopher Wylie’s whistleblower story at the Observer and in the New York Times, there have been continuous revelations about Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, SCL Group, and their brazen use – or misuse – of Facebook data and dirty tricks.

But given the complex business structure of SCL and Cambridge Analytica’s UK and US affiliates, there are reasons to question precisely what Wednesday’s announcement means. Already there are some suggestions that those associated with Cambridge Analytica may re-emerge in another form.
Are Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group attempting to evade recent negative coverage, only to re-form and continue their work as part of a new entity?
Damian Collins, the British MP who chairs the digital, culture, media and sport Committee that is investigating SCL and Cambridge Analytica, tweeted some words of caution on Wednesday after the news broke, noting that CA and SCL “cannot be allowed to delete their data history by closing”.
Certainly the news presents as many questions as answers.

Cambridge Analytica and SCL have at least 18 active companies, branches, and affiliates with similar names, based in the UK and the US. The complex relationship among these companies makes it very difficult to understand how revenues, employment, and data are shared. It almost seems as though the business structure was created to make it impossible to track decision-making and funding.
On Wednesday afternoon Cambridge Analytica issued a press release stating: “SCL Elections Ltd., as well as certain of its and Cambridge Analytica LLC’s U.K. affiliates (collectively, the ‘Company’ or ‘Cambridge Analytica’) filed applications to commence insolvency proceedings in the U.K.” It also stated that “parallel bankruptcy proceedings will soon be commenced on behalf of Cambridge Analytica LLC and certain of the Company’s U.S. affiliates in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.”
It is notable that Cambridge Analytica’s press release does not mention SCL Group Limited, SCL Social Ltd, or SCL Insight Ltd. Is it closing only some affiliates and leaving others open?
Shortly after the whistleblower story on Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data broke in March, the Cambridge Analytica CEO, Alexander Nix, was suspended and three US states opened investigations into Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. In the following weeks, current and past employees of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook have testified in the UK, the US, Canada and other countries, and a US and UK class action lawsuit was filed against both companies in early April.

  What is the Cambridge Analytica scandal? - video explainer

However, reporting on Cambridge Analytica – from Cadwalladr and others – had begun to appear in 2015 and 2016 and intensified throughout 2017. While Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group began to be the focus of more media scrutiny, in the background, company executives were quietly setting up a new company. Emerdata Limited was incorporated in August 2017 with SCL Group’s chairman, Julian Wheatland, and SCL’s chief data officer, Alexander Tayler, as original owners, but the company suddenly expanded with new directors and funding this year.
On 23 January 2018, four new directors were appointed to Emerdata, including Johnson Chun Shun Ko, who happens to be deputy chairman of Frontier Services Group. On the same day that Ko joined the board of Emerdata, shares were issued valued at £1,912,502. On 7 March 2018, Firecrest Technologies Limited was incorporated, with Alexander Nix listed briefly as director and then replaced by Alexander Tayler, and Emerdata listed as the owner. And on 16 March, a few days before the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower story broke, two more directors joined Emerdata, Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer.
There has been much reporting on how Robert and Rebekah Mercer have funded US political action committees (Pacs) that have paid Cambridge Analytica, but there had been little public evidence showing a current legal or business connection from the Mercers to Cambridge Analytica.

The business purpose of Emerdata is not known, beyond the general description of “data processing, hosting and related activities”. However, in a Channel 4 News report, the SCL Group founder, Nigel Oakes, said it was his understanding that Emerdata was set up to acquire all of Cambridge Analytica and SCL.
Emerdata did not respond to multiple requests for comment sent to several company directors.
The news Wednesday about the closure of Cambridge Analytica does not mention Emerdata or its subsidiary Firecrest Technologies. And just one day earlier, on Tuesday, the UK Companies House website posted an update on Emerdata, noting two pending filings, for “Resolution of removal of pre-emption rights” and “Resolution of allotment of securities”. The documents are being processed and will be available in five days. Perhaps these filings will show that the company is dissolving, or perhaps they will be the standard filings of an active company. All of the other UK SCL-related companies are still listed as active and have no pending filings.

The beleaguered Nix is still listed as an active director and shareholder of SCL Group and many of the related companies. Wednesday’s news is big, but it is not clear yet what it means, and whether SCL, Cambridge Analytica, Emerdata and the same executives who ran these companies during the Brexit campaign and US election will re-emerge in a new entity to continue their work.