As a result, Nix was suspended as CEO, and replaced by Julian Wheatland. On 23 March 2018, the British High Court granted the ICO a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's London offices. Facebook banned Cambridge Analytica from advertising on its platform, saying that it had been deceived.

In response to the media reports, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) of the UK pursued a warrant to search the company's servers. Shortly afterwards, Channel 4 News aired undercover investigative videos showing Nix boasting about using prostitutes, bribery sting operations, and honey traps to discredit politicians on whom it conducted opposition research, and saying that the company 'ran all of (Donald Trump's) digital campaign'. The New York Times and The Observer reported that the company had acquired and used personal data about Facebook users from an external researcher who had told Facebook he was collecting it for academic purposes. In March 2018, multiple media outlets broke news of Cambridge Analytica's business practices. See also: Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal Political scientists question CA's claims about the effectiveness of its methods of targeting voters. CA's role in those campaigns has been controversial and is the subject of ongoing inquiries in both countries. In 2016, CA worked for Donald Trump's presidential campaign as well as for Leave.EU (one of the organisations campaigning in the United Kingdom's referendum on European Union membership). In 2015, CA performed data analysis services for Ted Cruz's presidential campaign. While its parent SCL had focused on influencing elections in developing countries since the 1990s, Cambridge focused more on the western world, including the United Kingdom and the United States CEO Alexander Nix has said CA was involved in 44 U.S. The company combined misappropriation of digital assets, data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication during electoral processes. The company's owners included several of the Conservative Party's largest donors such as billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz, former British Conservative minister Jonathan Marland, Baron Marland and the family of American hedge fund manager Robert Mercer. Several of the company's executives were Old Etonians. As a result of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal Nix was removed as CEO and replaced by Julian Wheatland before the company closed. Conservative minister and MP Sir Geoffrey Pattie was the founding chairman of SCL Lord Ivar Mountbatten also joined Oakes as a director of the company. Nigel Oakes, known as the former boyfriend of Lady Helen Windsor, had founded the predecessor SCL Group in the 1990s, and in 2005 Oakes established SCL Group together with his brother Alexander Oakes and Alexander Nix SCL Group was the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.

Nix was also the director of nine similar companies sharing the same registered offices in London, including Firecrest technologies, Emerdata and six SCL Group companies including 'SCL elections limited'. Cambridge Analytica (SCL USA) was incorporated in January 2015 with its registered office in Westferry Circus, London and just one staff member, its director and CEO Alexander James Ashburner Nix (also appointed in January 2015). The men who ran Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL were described as having close ties to the Conservative Party, royalty and the British military. Cambridge Analytica was established as a subsidiary of the private intelligence company SCL Group that was active in military and political arenas.

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