In November 2019 the UK Foreign Office released archive documents confirming that it had provided funding to Reuters during the 1960s and 1970s so that Reuters could expand its coverage in the Middle East. An agreement was made between the Information Research Department (IRD) and Reuters for the UK Treasury to provide £350,000 over 4 years to fund Reuters' expansion. The UK government had already been funding the Latin American department of Reuters through a shell company; however, this method was discounted for the Middle East operation due to the accounting of the shell company looking suspicious, with the IRD stating that the company "already looks queer to anyone who might wish to investigate why such an inactive and unprofitable company continues to run."[45] Instead, the BBC was used to fund the project by paying for enhanced subscriptions to the news organisation which the treasury would reimburse the BBC for at a later date.