MPs have suggested that Linklaters does not meet the standards of a UK law firm and that it is in Putin's pocket, all because it declined to talk to them about a client. 

The startling comments were made by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in its report on the extent of Russia's clandestine takeover of the UK, and the threat it represents to national security. As part of its inquiry, the committee invited Linklaters to talk about its work for the Russian energy company EN+ Group, which floated on the London Stock Exchange last November.

The Magic Circle firm declined. Talking voluntarily in a public forum about a client isn't regarded generally as great for business. Doing so in any detail would almost certainly have breached client confidentiality. And they must have known that whether they spilled or stonewalled in front of the committee, grandstanding MPs would accuse them of being traitorous opportunists selling out Blighty.

Which is exactly what the committee did anyway. Led by chair Tom Tugendhat, the son of High Court Judge Sir Michael Tugendhat, the committee used Linklaters' no-show to cast extraordinary aspersions on the firm. Its report conceded that there was "no obvious evidence" of impropriety relating to Linklaters. But that, nonetheless, "We regret their unwillingness to engage with our inquiry" and "must leave others to judge whether their work 'at the forefront of financial, corporate and commercial developments in Russia' has left them so entwined in the corruption of the Kremlin and its supporters that they are no longer able to meet the standards expected of a UK regulated law firm".

    Tugendhat plays to the gallery: how it might look.

The committee's insinuations that Linklaters was corrupt and unfit to carry on business drew a strained response from the firm. In a statement, it said, "We’re very surprised and concerned at the passing criticism of Linklaters in the report. We reject any suggestion based solely on the fact that we - like dozens of other international firms - operate in a particular market that our services may somehow involve the firm in corruption, state-related or otherwise".

Linklaters, said the firm, "adheres to the highest standards of business conduct, ensuring we comply with applicable laws and professional rules, including with respect to anti-bribery and corruption, anti-money laundering and sanctions”. And it must be clean, because as far as RollOnFriday is aware, no-one in the firm has reported an inappropriate office romance with Vlad.
 
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Comments

Anonymous 25 May 18 15:49

MPs and vexatious "whistleblowers" of various cause celebres have been abusing the parliamentary privilege offered by committees for ages now, and it's getting worse. In the age of Twitter, MPs and carefully selected witnesses indulge in what would be considered defamation anywhere else. Someone has to put a stop to this. Often, the objects of their ire have zero recourse or right of rebuttal to comments that are then spread all over the internet and media- be they doctors, lawyers, suspects of assault or anyone else bound by duties of confidentiality.

Does Rule of Law still exist in the UK?

Anonymous 25 May 18 18:05

This is disappointing but surprisingly common. I'm not connect with Linklaters for the avoidance of doubt. The various MPs on these committees make these statements happy in the knowledge they they will be reported as near facts. The trick is also commonly used by Corbyn at PMQs and all over the Treasury Select Committee.

It's a shame that the media doesn't stop reporting these grandstanding comments or alternatively that those making them are held to account for them. For example does the committee have a single sentence of evidence that Linklaters "are no longer able to meet the standards expected of a UK regulated law firm"? Err, let's think for a moment....that's a no from me.

At least ROF points out the grandstanding and the pickle the firm would have been in if it had cast client confidentiality to one side. Would that surely then have been evidence of not meeting standings?

One final point is that everyone deserves the best representation even those from the dodgiest of jurisdictions and it's a shame that MPs don't believe that.

Anonymous 25 May 18 22:23

Unfortunate that your Law Society doesn't issue strongly worded statements in response to this stuff the way equivalent bodies do elsewhere in the world.

Anonymous 27 May 18 05:59

As someone above said, where is our professional body in situations like this, to defend the right of lawyers to observe their duties of confidentiality to clients? You know, the people we pay expensive dues to each year, who you’d legitimately expect to defend and advance the interests of the profession, like any normal professional body, industry association, or trades union would do? Oh hang on, yes that’s right; they’re a consummately useless bunch of glad-handing professional havers-of-lunch, who devote themselves mainly to harassing other solicitors and occasionally striking them off for frivolous misdemeanours.

Can we not just give up the pretence of being a regulated profession please, since our regulators and professional body are such shambling halfwits, and just reform as a regular trade that isn’t afraid to lobby properly for its interests?

Anonymous 27 May 18 21:50

To answer the point above, our professional body is comprised of, to avoid being to rude, high street solicitors, and not the brighter ones. Our regulatory authority couldn’t organise a piss up in a brwery but lovs principles based regulation as it allows an approach which is, charitably, flexible in its intellectual basis (but only flexible one way),

Newspapers talka about judges being enemies of the state, Politicians talk about the court of public opinion and see the rule of law as a hindrance to their intellectual greatness (a sort of Star Trekian “make it so”). At times we’ve appeared to have moved from a principle of innnocent until proved guilty to the opposite. This isn’t a political point - they’re all as bad as each other. And most of the public are at not over-bright so don’t notice and don’t care.

Anonymous 28 May 18 12:33

A shame that the Links response was strained rather than 'extremely robust', as it should have been.