Senate investigates links between elite sport, consulting contracts and Saudi influence
US consulting firms make vast profits advising foreign governments. A Senate committee scrutinises their business model in advance of legislation that could see them classed as ‘foreign agents’.
Hatice Cengiz, fiancée of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, unveiling his portrait on the National Mall to mark the third anniversary of his murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Washington DC, 1 October 2021
James Kamau · Anadolu · Getty
Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal told the heads of four American consulting firms at the opening hearing of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs on 6 February, ‘The issue before us today is truly of historic consequence.’ Blumenthal’s committee is investigating the role of McKinsey and Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Teneo and M Klein & Company in the Saudi Arabian government’s strategy.
The issue first came onto the agenda in June 2023 with press coverage of Saudi Arabia’s plans to make huge investments in American sport, including by buying clubs and sponsoring athletes. The Senate, concerned about Riyadh’s intentions, asked for detailed records of the four consulting firms’ dealings with the Saudis’ Public Investment Fund (PIF), which manages over $900bn. The issue turned political when these firms encountered problems with the kingdom’s judicial system, which threatened employees with imprisonment if they surrendered the documents to the committee.
Saudi judges claimed that releasing them would be detrimental to national security interests, which led the Senate committee to launch an investigation into foreign influence. Senator Blumenthal, who initiated it, is seeking to understand ‘how [it is] that consulting work performed by American companies, including records about investment in United States golf, could harm Saudi Arabia’s national security’.
US-based consulting firms have provided economic policy advice to the Saudi government since the 1970s oil boom. The Saudi ministry of economy and planning has even been nicknamed the ‘ministry of McKinsey’. In 2015 it produced a report, ‘Saudi Arabia Beyond Oil’, which predicted the country’s oil dependence could lead to it ‘find[ing] itself confronting rising unemployment, declining household income and a deteriorating fiscal situation’, threatening the kingdom’s stability. BCG played a key role in devising Saudi’s ‘Vision 2030’ plan, aimed at (...)
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Louis Callonnec
Louis Callonnec studies at the Institute of Political Studies, Paris.
Translated by George Miller
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