The former chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy which collapsed amid a scandal over its harvesting of personal data during election campaigns, is facing a seven-year ban on holding company directorships.
Sky News can reveal that Alexander Nix, who ran Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Election, has agreed to undertakings that will prevent him from running, or serving as a director of, a limited company in Britain until 2027.
Sources said the ban would be announced by the Insolvency Service, which is part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, later on Thursday.
Image: Alexander Nix
It is due to come into force early next month, they added.
The sanction will be the latest in a string of fines and bans imposed on those involved in Cambridge Analytica’s brief but controversial existence, which became a focal point for debate about the extent to which the use of sophisticated data-mining tools can undermine democratic processes.
An insider said the directorship disqualification against Mr Nix would accuse him of allowing the consultancy to market itself as offering potentially unethical services to potential clients.
These included “bribery stings and honey-trap stings aimed at uncovering corruption”, “voter disengagement campaigns” and “the obtaining of information to discredit political opponents”, according to a source familiar with the proposed statement.
The disqualification of Mr Nix would be based on an assertion that he had acted with “a lack of commercial probity”, they said.
It was unclear on Thursday whether any other individuals involved in the Cambridge Analytica scandal continued to face disqualification proceedings.
Mr Nix, who sought to deny that Cambridge Analytica had played any role in trying to shape voters’ intentions ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum, was accused by MPs of “deliberately misleading” a select committee over its alleged use of Facebook data.
SCL Elections and its affiliated companies ceased trading in 2018 following a storm of adverse publicity over its techniques and an undercover video recording which showed Mr Nix appearing to encourage a sting operation involving bribes and paid-for sex during a political campaign in Sri Lanka.
Image: Facebook’s role in the data scandal resulted in a multi-billion dollar settlement with US regulators
Last year, Facebook agreed to pay $5bn to regulators in the US over vast quantities of user data which had been deployed by Cambridge Analytica during campaigns including President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.
The social network also paid a far smaller sum – £500,000 – to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office for “serious breaches of data protection law”.
The US Federal Trade Commission said it had reached settlements with Mr Nix and another former Cambridge Analytica employee, Aleksandr Kogan, an app developer and academic.
In the settlement announcement, the FTC accused Cambridge Analytica of employing “deceptive tactics to harvest personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users for voter profiling and targeting.”
The leak of huge quantities of Facebook user data thrust the company headed by Mark Zuckerberg into a spotlight about the quality of its compliance operations from which it has yet to emerge.
Reports said on Thursday that Facebook would launch a new oversight body ahead of this year’s US presidential election to determine the legitimacy of content published on its platform.
The Insolvency Service’s disqualification of Mr Nix is expected to refer to Cambridge Analytica’s provision of “shady political services”, according to an insider.
Under the powers contained in the Company Director Disqualification Act, the Insolvency Service can seek to ban individuals for up to 15 years.
Other prominent targets of directorship bans handed down in recent years include Dominic Chappell, who bought the department store chain BHS for £1 from Sir Philip Green, then presided over its collapse.
Mr Chappell was banned for ten years.
Alan Yentob, the former BBC creative director, is contesting a proposed ban arising from his stewardship of the failed charity Kids’ Company in a court case that is scheduled to begin next month.
Three former partners of the collapsed public relations firm Bell Pottinger – James Henderson, Victoria Geoghegan and Nick Lambert – have also been handed notices of the Insolvency Service’s intention to disqualify them.
All three former Bell Pottinger executives are understood to be contesting it.
A spokesman for the Insolvency Service declined to comment ahead of an official announcement about Mr Nix.