He’s a lawyer whose friends and clients have been called a “Who’s Who of the world’s most notorious figures”. Take Saddam Hussein, for instance. So what’s happening now with Giovanni Di Stefano?

Along with Saddam, Giovanni Di Stefano boasts clients such as Nicholas van Hoogstraten, the controversial property developer who was recently acquitted of manslaughter, timeshare fraudster John “Goldfinger” Palmer and “road rage” killer Kenneth Noye.

He was interviewed in March on BBC World’sHardtalk programme, which said the lawyer’s “friends and clients read like a Who’s Who of the world’s most notorious figures”.

And now the BBC have struck a deal with a company linked to Di Stefano, described by the BBC themselves as the “world’s most controversial lawyer”.

The agreement, which involved the BBC supplying programming to two TV services in central Russia under licence, is now in danger of unravelling amid charges of unpaid debts.

The deal was announced by Mr Byford in February last year when he was in charge of BBC World, the corporation’s 24-hour international news channel. It involved the BBC selling programmes to terrestrial broadcaster OTV and satellite service TB+, which would be translated and rebroadcast. The agreement was struck with a UK-registered company, Uralindustry (UK), and its parent, Angloasian Media. Both businesses are run by Thomas Puskas, an Austro-Hungarian entrepreneur.

OTV broadcast the BBC programmes until March. TB+ has yet to begin broadcasting.

The Independent on Sunday has been contacted by suppliers and former employees of Angloasian complaining that they have not been paid. The company has left its offices in the London Playhouse Centre, a broadcast suite in central London, and calls to the company go to an answering service.

Angloasian’s accounts show that one of Mr Puskas’s joint directors is Michele di Stefano, the son of Giovanni.

Mr Puskas, 41, claims he has invested $6m (£3.3m) in the TB+ project. Asked about his links with the di Stefano family, he said: “Giovanni di Stefano is my solicitor and Michele is helping me in the business.”

“Technical difficulties” had been encountered setting up TB+, he added. But “we are restructuring and reorganising” and hope, “depending on the technical issues, to be on the air in three to four weeks”.

Mr Puskas said the group had closed its old offices while it relocates to new premises let to it by cable TV group NTL. He put problems with employees down to a “former translator who got fired”.

As for unpaid suppliers, Mr Puskas said: “It is always a question of your point of view. We have had arguments with a number of companies if the quality was not what it was supposed to be.”