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A businesswoman paid almost £1.7 million by the company blamed for the collapse of MG Rover after having an affair with one of its directors
today protested her innocence.
Qu Li, a Chinese consultant who has been described as a “femme fatale”, says she was “stoned to death” by government inspectors as she is a woman.
She denied having a relationship with Nick Stephenson, one of the “Phoenix Four” blamed for destroying the car company in 2005 while milking it for £42 million in salaries.
Ms Li, 45, said it was common for team members to work “intensively” together to secure a deal. “Maybe sometimes the support went slightly beyond the boundaries,” she said.
“But as far as I am concerned this was not a relationship.”
Ms Li was named in a report this month by Lord Mandelson's business department that blamed MG Rover's collapse on the Phoenix Four — chairman
John Towers, Peter Beale, John Edwards and Mr Stephenson.
They had bought the car manufacturer for £10 from BMW in 2000 with the hope of restoring its fortunes, but it collapsed five years later with debts of £1.3 billion and the loss of 6,500 jobs.
The official report found Ms Li, who came to the UK in 1990 to study for a doctorate at Leeds university, was paid a retainer of £1,000 a week plus a car. She also earned £1,000 for every day she assisted with overseas negotiations and £750 for every day she worked on domestic negotiations.
She was entitled to a “success fee” amounting to £740,000 for her part in a deal struck between MG Rover's new owners and a Chinese firm.
Mr Stephenson had authorised her contract with
little knowledge of fellow executives.
In total, Ms Li's company was paid £1,692,794 over 15 months, despite lawyers finding that apart from translation she “didn't seem to add much”.
The report found an “intimate relationship” developed between Ms Li, who was in a long-term relationship, and Mr Stephenson, who was divorced, in 2004.
Today Ms Li, told the Financial Times, said: “I feel I was stoned to death for three years by the government inspectors. Now I am being stoned to death again by the press.”
She said MG Rover would have collapsed sooner had she not brokered deals worth £120 million.
She said she might emigrate because of attention on her but added: “I can still deliver a lot for this country.”
