Conservative MP earns hundreds of thousands helping Singapore investor sue Britain over rejected coal mine
Former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox represents foreign firm using secretive tribunal system to challenge government climate decisions
Geoffrey Cox faces an accusation that would end most political careers: he's being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to help a foreign company sue the British government. The Conservative MP's client wants taxpayers to compensate them for a coal mine that Britain's High Court has already ruled was unlawfully approved.
This isn't corruption in the traditional sense. Cox has broken no rules. His fees from law firm Withers LLP are declared in the parliamentary register. The Singapore-based investor he represents, Woodhouse Investment, is using a perfectly legal arbitration system designed to protect foreign capital. But the case exposes something more unsettling: how international investment law has created a shadow constitutional system that can override democratic decisions, judicial rulings, and even climate commitments.
Here's what makes the Cumbria coal mine case so extraordinary. Britain's institutions decisively rejected it: the High Court ruled Michael Gove's approval unlawful, Parliament's climate advisers condemned it, and the new Labour government called it an "error in law." Yet through investor-state dispute settlement - a secretive tribunal system most citizens have never heard of - foreign investors can still force British taxpayers to pay for policies they specifically voted against.
The parallel legal universe
Welcome to investor-state dispute settlement, where normal legal principles don't apply. Foreign companies can bypass Britain's courts entirely and drag the government before international arbitrators whenever policies affect their investments. These tribunals award compensation not just for actual losses, but for profits that might never have existed.
The system was sold as protection for investors in corrupt dictatorships. It has morphed into something far more powerful: a mechanism allowing corporations to challenge any democratic decision that hurts their bottom line. The arbitrators aren't judges - they're commercial lawyers earning millions from these cases. Their decisions are binding and virtually impossible to appeal.
Woodhouse Investment is weaponising a 1975 UK-Singapore treaty signed during the Cold War, decades before anyone understood climate change. The treaty's innocent-sounding requirement for "fair and equitable treatment" now enables extraordinary corporate power. What seemed reasonable for protecting British firms in newly independent Singapore can today be used to override Britain's own climate commitments.
Consider the absurdity: Britain's High Court spent months examining the coal mine approval and concluded Michael Gove had systematically failed to assess climate impacts. Justice Holgate's 86-page judgment methodically dismantled the government's reasoning. None of this matters to the ISDS tribunal, which operates under different rules prioritising investor returns over public interest.
Cox's profitable contradiction
Since 2019, Geoffrey Cox has earned over £2 million beyond his MP's salary - more than most of his Devon constituents will see in a lifetime. The bulk comes from his £800,000 annual retainer from Withers LLP, a London law firm specialising in helping multinational corporations sue governments.
Cox's expertise as former Attorney General makes him devastatingly effective. His constitutional knowledge, gained through years of public service, now serves private clients seeking to circumvent British institutions through international arbitration. When Torridge and Tavistock voters elected him, they presumably expected representation, not this lucrative betrayal of the public interest.
Withers' client roster reads like a rogue's gallery of controversial ISDS cases. Qatar National Bank suing South Sudan over a $700 million loan - double the war-torn country's healthcare budget. German companies challenging Morocco's metal export restrictions. Italian investors fighting South Africa's post-apartheid mining empowerment policies for years of expensive litigation.
Research shows fossil fuel companies have extracted $82.8 billion through ISDS since 1998, with 72% success rates when cases reach full arbitration. Cox sits at the centre of this industry, earning more from Withers in months than his constituents earn in years. Parliamentary rules allow this arrangement, but that doesn't make it less grotesque.
The revolving door spins both ways: the same expertise that makes someone valuable as a government minister makes them valuable to companies attacking government decisions. Cox embodies this perverse incentive structure, where public service becomes a stepping stone to private profit at the public's expense.
Fossil fuel's legal strategy
The Cumbria case follows a ruthless playbook. When democratic institutions reject fossil fuel projects, companies bypass them entirely through ISDS. TC Energy demanded $15 billion after Biden cancelled Keystone XL. Rockhopper sued Italy for €200 million over offshore drilling bans. German utility RWE sued the Netherlands for billions over coal plant closures.
The pattern is always the same: exploit decades-old treaties to override contemporary climate policies. These agreements were signed when fossil fuels seemed benign and climate action was unimaginable. Now companies use them to make taxpayers pay twice - once for environmental damage, again to compensate polluters for policies preventing further harm.
Boston University research estimates potential ISDS claims from oil and gas investors could reach $340 billion as governments implement Paris Agreement commitments. That's roughly equivalent to annual global climate finance - money that could fund green transition instead pays fossil fuel compensation.
But the real weapon isn't winning cases, it's the threat. "Regulatory chill" describes how governments avoid environmental policies for fear of triggering expensive lawsuits. Why risk billion-dollar claims when you can just delay climate action instead?
ISDS tribunals routinely dismiss environmental concerns as mere policy preferences that cannot justify interfering with investor rights. Unlike British courts, which balance commercial interests against public welfare, these panels focus solely on protecting investment returns. Climate change, public health, democratic mandates - all irrelevant when profits are at stake.
The democracy deficit
Here's the constitutional scandal: the 1975 UK-Singapore treaty was never debated by Parliament or scrutinised by the public. Civil servants negotiated it, ministers signed it, and now Singapore-based investors can use it to override British court decisions and challenge Britain's climate commitments.
This democratic deficit has exploded as ISDS scope expanded. Early investment treaties protected against basic theft or discrimination. Modern interpretations allow challenges to virtually any policy affecting commercial interests - public health measures, environmental regulations, tax policies. What was sold as investor protection has become a mechanism for challenging democracy itself.
The secrecy compounds the outrage. Unlike British courts, where proceedings are open and judgements published, ISDS arbitrations happen behind closed doors. Citizens learn about cases only when governments are ordered to pay compensation. Taxpayers have no say in proceedings that directly affect their interests, no right to participate, no avenue for appeal.
Yet they foot the bill. ISDS awards come from public funds that could support healthcare, education, or climate adaptation. British taxpayers may end up compensating a Singapore company for a coal mine that Britain's own courts ruled unlawful and that contradicts Parliament's own climate commitments.
The perverse incentives are obvious: the expertise that makes someone valuable as a government minister also makes them valuable to companies challenging government decisions. Cox's lucrative contradiction isn't an aberration - it's the system working exactly as designed.
Constitutional implications
The Cumbria case exposes a constitutional absurdity. Parliament enacted binding climate commitments through the Climate Change Act 2008. British courts ruled the coal mine violated these commitments. Yet foreign investors can force taxpayers to compensate them for policies Parliament mandated and courts endorsed.
If governments can be sued for implementing their own laws, then international investment law has achieved constitutional supremacy over domestic institutions. The sovereignty that Britain symbolically reclaimed through Brexit becomes meaningless when commercial arbitrators can override parliamentary decisions affecting foreign investments.
As climate policies intensify, this will get worse. Every carbon price, coal plant closure, or oil exploration restriction creates potential ISDS claims worth billions. The cumulative effect could make climate action financially suicidal - precisely when such action is most urgent.
Cox embodies these contradictions perfectly. His legal expertise enables substantial fees helping companies circumvent the democratic institutions he swore to serve. The arrangement is legal, the conflicts permissible, the ISDS system internationally recognised. Yet the result is a parallel constitutional order where commercial interests routinely trump democratic decisions.
The Cumbria coal mine will probably never be built. The High Court quashed planning permission, the government opposes it, the company lost its mining licence. But the ISDS case proceeds anyway, potentially costing taxpayers millions for a mine that was never viable and was rejected by every British institution.
This is the system working as intended: rewarding commercial failure whilst punishing democratic governance. Until these perverse incentives are challenged, democracy and climate action remain vulnerable to attack through secretive tribunals that most citizens never knew existed. Geoffrey Cox's profitable betrayal merely crystallises a much larger crisis of accountability in the modern international system.