JCB built and supplied equipment to Russia months after saying exports had stopped, 15 May 2024

The British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal.

Russian customs records show that JCB, whose owners are major donors to the Conservative party, continued to make new products available for Russian dealers well after 2 March 2022, when the company publicly stated that it had “voluntarily paused exports” to Russia.

The data raises questions about the accuracy of JCB’s statements on its business in Russia and relationship with its biggest dealer there, Moscow-based Lonmadi, and that company’s former owner, UK-based JVM group.

JCB has repeatedly said that it stopped exporting products to Russia and JVM companies after 2 March 2022 – less than a week after Putin sent troops into Ukraine.

However, customs records collated by a trade data provider show the serial numbers of dozens of vehicles, worth millions of pounds, which appear to have been supplied to companies in Russia after that date.

When the Guardian presented a sample of those records to the Staffordshire-based manufacturer, it admitted that JVM continued to collect diggers from JCB’s factories for months after the voluntary pause, but said that was due to contractual obligations.

JCB also confirmed that the manufacturing of some of the equipment continued after that date.

JCB’s lawyers said: “Any collection of goods by a JVM company after 2 March 2022 was pursuant to contractual obligations already entered into and completed or substantially completed prior to that date.”

The company also denied any inconsistency or inaccuracy in its public statements...

The company said it also closed down an assembly facility and other business operations in Russia, at considerable cost, and “suffered a very significant economic loss” through its voluntary actions. It also offered to house 70 Ukrainian refugees in company homes in Staffordshire...

JCB’s business in Russia increased through a partnership with Lonmadi and JVM, which was owned by a Briton, Max Skillman. Trading under the Lonmadi and Kwintmadi names, the dealership grew to employ more than 1,000 people, mainly in Russia, and briefly propelled Skillman into the ranks of Britain’s wealthiest businesspeople. JCB’s sales in Russia continued to expand after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014...

Approached recently by the Guardian, Skillman said via his lawyer that JVM had divested itself of “all of its beneficial interest in Lonmadi and of any involvement in its management or operations” on 4 April 2022.

JCB has also repeatedly said that it has cut ties with Russia. In July 2022, JCB’s lawyers told the Observer that all exports to Lonmadi and JVM had stopped after 2 March 2022. They wrote: “JCB has not since that date supplied any machinery to the dealer”, referring to JVM. They added: “Any JCB machinery that the dealer may have sold since March 2022 is stock that it already had in its possession before that date, over which JCB has no control.”

After initial inquiries by the Guardian in February this year, lawyers for JCB reiterated that position, and said: “JCB ceased operating its dealer relationship with JSC Lonmadi in March 2022”...