Don’t do it (part 2)

A blistering piece in the FT this morning by Cat Rutter Pooley (paywalled) – City lawyers cannot hide behind the law over Russian clients – on the dilemma for law firms.

And a very clear message that this should not be a dilemma,

But mealy-mouthed statements should not be allowed to provide cover for a lack of real action. Firms do not need to shout about dropping Russian clients. It nonetheless needs to be clear that they will not carry on as they were before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Lawyers always profit in bad times. You’d be naive to think otherwise.

Nonetheless, how they do it is what really matters. And how we will judge them.

The really difficult bit – don’t do it. Stop acting. Walk away.

I was very struck by a comment, reported in today’s FT (paywalled), by Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, set up by Alexei Navalny,

[M]y experience in international finance has taught me not to expect moral-based decisions by professional services firms.

What are the City professional services firms with links to Russia going to do? What are their internal ethics advisers telling their management boards? What are the pressures they will feel from clients, their staff, their alumni, if they aren’t already? Are they ready to walk away? Are they already looking for the right weasel words?

Who knows? I don’t – but do they?

20 years ago Bill Knight, who had just stepped down as Senior Partner at Simmons & Simmons, wrote an article for PLC titled Practical morality for lawyers. It is still available if you have a subscription. He referenced the then recent financial scandals – Enron, Anderson, Tyco, Worldcom etc. Remember them?

It’s a short article. It is also as applicable today as it was then, possibly more so. It ends with a clear and simple message,

Don’t let anyone tell you that you are not the guardian of morality. We all are. If not, who? Politicians? Now I really feel safe.

“Absolutely not worried . . .”

Normally it is the pretender to the crown who pledges loyalty – but then perhaps the Prime Minister simply needs to reassure himself that all is well.

I wouldn’t be too sure.

Spring

The gathering storm

The trouble with parties is that there is always a party organiser. A party simply doesn’t happen without an invitation. A gathering – if you stretch the truth a little – may just occur.

This is why Downing Street and its supporters have been so particular about their language? Their gatherings, they keep suggesting, were not premeditated.

Under the lockdown rules meeting more than the prescribed number was simply to risk a relatively light fine under a Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) but to organise and host a party means a fine of a different magnitude.

So whether or not a gathering was actually a party is important. We, the public, may have little trouble in distinguishing the two but precision is critical when it comes to law.

The most recent revelations suggest that emails were sent inviting people to the ‘gathering’ where, in Conor Burns’s immortal words, the Prime Minister was “ambushed with a cake” . . . before he later changed the story and said there was no cake. And the emails came from where? And who brought the cake? Not all parties have cake but most birthday cakes end up at parties.

So is this why the Met has suddenly put the brakes on Sue Gray’s report? Because, as always, it’s all in the numbers. Like the difference between £200 and £10,000.