(Bloomberg) -- The UK’s Companies House halted the process of striking off Nest Wise Trading Ltd. from the country’s corporate register.
A filing at Companies House on Wednesday said its compulsory strike-off action against the London-based company has been discontinued. Under the agency’s rules, interested parties — be they a company’s directors, creditors or those with legal complaints against the firm — can challenge the wind-up.
“Cause has been shown why the above company should not be struck off the register,” the filing said, without giving details. A spokesman for Companies House said they couldn’t comment on specific cases.
Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the move to strike off Nest Wise was part of a broader push by the US and the UK to target entities that they suspect have been sidestepping oil-trading restrictions, according to people familiar with the deliberations, asking not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly.
Nest Wise Trading’s parent Nest Wise Petroleum LLC, said in statement it had originally instructed a third-party service provider to pursue a voluntary strike off, alongside several outposts worldwide focused on agribusiness financing. The compulsory strike off notice was issued when it failed to file the required confirmation statement within three months, it said.
“Nest Wise reversed course on winding up and submitted the required overdue confirmation statement to discontinue the compulsory strike-off,” the statement said. “Nest Wise did this specifically to demonstrate to the public that the compulsory strike-off notice was not punishment as part of some sort of government initiative against it.”
Nest Wise said it now plans to restart the voluntary process. The company also said it had never received any government inquiries and wasn’t aware of any investigations against it.
The UK believes Nest Wise is part of a network controlled by Hossein Shamkhani, the people familiar with the matter said. In late August, a Bloomberg investigation revealed the role that Shamkhani, whose father is a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, plays in the world of Iranian and Russian oil trading. Nest Wise is a prominent entity within his network, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
READ: Secretive Trader ‘Hector’ Seen as Global Kingpin for Iranian Oil
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