On 17 February 2015, Oborne resigned from "The Daily Telegraph". In a letter posted to the online news website, openDemocracy, Oborne criticised his former employer for the allegedly unscrupulous relationship between their editorial and commercial arms. Specifically, Oborne outlined how the paper would suppress negative stories and drop investigations into the HSBC bank, a major source of their advertising revenue, which, in his opinion, compromised their journalistic integrity calling it a "form of fraud on its readers". He also alleged that "The Telegraph"s coverage of stories relating to British supermarket chain Tesco, shipping company Cunard and the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong had been influenced by commercial considerations. He added, "There are other very troubling cases, many of them set out in "Private Eye", which has been a major source of information for "Telegraph" journalists wanting to understand what is happening on their paper".