James Sassoon, Baron Sassoon

The Lord Sassoon
Commercial Secretary to the Treasury
In office
11 May 2010 – 3 January 2013
Prime MinisterDavid Cameron
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byThe Lord Deighton
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
29 May 2010
Life Peerage
Personal details
Born (1955-09-11) 11 September 1955 (age 69)
London
Political partyConservative
SpouseSarah Barnes
Children3
EducationSunningdale School
Eton College
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford

James Meyer Sassoon, Baron Sassoon, FCA[1] (born 11 September 1955) is a British businessman and politician. After a career in the financial sector he served in various roles in HM Treasury, the UK's finance ministry, from 2002 to 2008, at which point he began advising David Cameron on financial issues.[2] From May 2010 to January 2013, Sassoon was the first Commercial Secretary to the Treasury and was appointed to the House of Lords as a Conservative.[3] In January 2013, he became an executive director of Jardine Matheson Holdings and of Matheson & Co. He is also a director of Hongkong Land, Dairy Farm and Mandarin Oriental and chairman of the China-Britain Business Council.

In November 2017 he was mentioned in the Paradise Papers as one of the beneficiaries of a tax exempt Cayman Island trust fund worth $236 million in 2007 and defended it as being of non UK origin.[4] Sassoon was president of the international Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering 2007–2008.[5]

  1. ^ "Ministers' interests" (PDF). Cabinet Office. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  2. ^ "Commercial Secretary to the Treasury – Minister of State – Government of the United Kingdom". hm-treasury.gov.uk. 15 March 2023.
  3. ^ Armitstead, Louise (14 May 2010). "Sir James Sassoon set to be Lord of the City" – via The Daily Telegraph.
  4. ^ "James Meyer Sassoon". International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. 5 November 2017. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  5. ^ Finextra (3 April 2007). "James Sassoon to act as president of financial action task force".