By Avril Ormsby
LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - British investment bank Rothschild and top law firm Freshfields said on Wednesday they "greatly regretted" links between their 19th century founders and the slave trade.
Founders Nathan Mayer Rothschild and James William Freshfield both supported the abolition of slavery. But new historical research showed both were engaged in business linked to the trade, the Financial Times reported last weekend.
Both companies issued statements on their websites in which they said they had been unaware of the connection.
"We greatly regret that the firm is linked in any way to the inhumane institution of slavery," Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer said. Rothschild said the company greatly regrets being linked in any way "to the abhorrent institution of slavery".
The links could prove contentious for both firms' operations in the United States, where numerous banks and other bodies have come under pressure to make amends for profiting from slavery, the FT said.
Documents from Britain's national archives,which academics at University College London are studying, showed that Rothschild, a founder of the banking dynasty, had allowed the use of slaves as collateral when banking with a slave owner, the FT said.
The documents also indicated that Freshfield acted as a trustee for some clients in deals involving Caribbean slave plantations.
"James William Freshfield was an active member of the Church Missionary Society ... (which) was committed to the abolition of slavery," the law firm said in its statement.
Rothschild himself arranged a loan on behalf of the British government which accelerated the abolition of the slave trade by facilitating the payment of some compensation to slave owners, the bank said.
(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)