Manchester United Football Club sponsor Aon confirmed they held a Zimbabwean diamond mining company as a client – despite it being blocked by US government sanctions.
The world’s largest insurer Aon Corporation’s Vice President of Global Public Relations, David Prosperi, said that the company cut off ties with their controversial ex-client, Mbada Diamonds Ltd, on January 1 2012.
Mr Prosperi said: “Aon has not held the Mbada Diamonds Ltd portfolio as a client since January 1, 2012.”
Mbada Diamonds was sanctioned by the United States government on the December 9 2011, which development bars all US based businesses from dealing with the diamond company.
It was listed as a result of its negative record on reported human rights abuses and links with the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, the party which rules the country and is led by President Robert Mugabe.
A spokesman for the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control confirmed to MM yesterday that: “All property and interests in property of Mbada Diamonds… are blocked.”
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