'Can I take you to Ikea? I love you.'
The SDT has published its judgment ordering former Bird & Bird partner Takeshige Sugimoto to be banned from the profession for five years.
Sugimoto was head of a team in 2Birds’ Brussels office until he took a close personal interest in a new joiner and was expelled by the firm and reported to the SRA and the Brussels Bar Association.
On Person B’s first day at work, 37-year-old Sugimoto took her out for dinner on the pretext that it was a tradition for new joiners. He peppered her with personal questions about her lovelife and told her she was “different from the other girls in the team” and he “liked her a lot”.
Even when she told him multiple times that she preferred to walk alone, Sugimoto insisted on walking Person B back to her accommodation and took her hand, which she withdrew.
Over the next two months he continued to ask “very personal questions” about her relationship status and what kind of men she liked, while also telling her to be available for him on the phone “at all times” in case he needed her for work-related matters.
However, the majority of the 989 WhatsApp messages he then sent over the next eight weeks concerned his “intense feelings” for her.
A week after she started working at 2Birds, Sugimoto tried to persuade her to go somewhere, anywhere, with him:
A week later he told her she was The One:
As well as being unable to take the hint, his WhatsApps also strayed into the sexual:
The partner even offered to lurk outside Person B’s home in case she wanted to see him:
He was also persistent in the face of multiple rejections:
Person B said she didn’t complain right away because she was dealing with “extreme anxiety, feelings of disgust and blame towards myself”. She said she was worried that she had been “too polite or too friendly”, and her reluctance was compounded by her status as a junior new employee who had moved to Belgium for the job.
Sugimoto admitted he had demonstrated a lack of integrity and abused his position by “inundating” Person B with requests to see her, which extended to physical touching by taking her hands and trying to hug her.
The SDT said he had direct control over Person B’s career, and there was a “significant” power imbalance between the two.
In mitigation, Sugimoto said he was depressed following the death of his father and became “fixated” on Person B for a short period “without proper consideration of the professional boundaries that should have been in place", or the "difficulty it might cause" her.
But he suggested she had consented to his conduct when she reassured him in a text, “I don't feel uncomfortable, don't worry, I would tell you. I really don't mind talking to you and hanging out with you, I just like taking time to get to know people slowly and in depth, but that takes time, no?”
He said she expressed similar sentiments throughout the two months, and when 2Birds received a complaint and commenced an internal investigation, he told the firm the texts demonstrated that his behaviour was not unwanted.
The firm declined to comment on the SDT’s ruling, but said at the time the SRA issued its decision to prosecute that a partner "was asked to leave the firm in 2019 with immediate effect as a result of conduct that was inconsistent with our high standards and values”.
Sugimoto, who was a Registered Foreign Lawyer, received a Section 43 order banning him from the profession for five years, and was fined £36,000. The Brussels Bar declined to take any action and he has since founded his own firm, S&K Brussels. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Comments
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In fairness, it doesn’t all look completely unwanted. We'd really need to see all the messages from each of them. Doubtful it's a regulatory matter.
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On what planet in what universe do those messages not look completely unwanted?
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I like Takeshige Sugimoto.
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Lord Lester 04 October 24 09:01
I like Takeshige Sugimoto
#MeToo
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@Anonette - on what planet on what universe do they look "completely unwanted"? A lot of her replies are jokey.
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‘In fairness, it doesn’t all look completely unwanted’. Sure, junior women never feel under undue pressure to keep the senior creep they work with sweet. Smiley face.Smiley face.Smiley face.
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@Anonymous 04 October 24 08:27, unwanted? Seriously! You've a junior fending off a predator in an extremely professional manner. What he actually deserved was a blunt P-Off, but not many of us at her stage of her career would have the balls to do that. Shame she felt there was no-one to turn to at the outset.
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@Arachnae - although there is no evidence in the messages we've seen that she felt under pressure.
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@9.31 - the messages don't appear unwanted, that's the point. What messages do you think are 'fending off'? Do you think telling him to P-Off would have been appropriate? We don't know if he's a predator, or whether she had anyone to turn to, or wanted to turn to anyone.
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@9.12/9.22 - why?
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The number of unsolicited messages is evidence in itself . HTH
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@Super Nashwan - we don't know if they were unsolicited. You'd need to see all the messages from each of them to know what was unsolicited. HTH.
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Clearly an unbalanced creep.
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It's weird how some people's brains interpret "I really fancy you" as "you really fancy me".
I went a bit mad in my mid 20s and fixated on someone. I still makes me cringe 35 years later. God knows how she feels but do not fret dear reader, I have no intention of trying to contact her and find out.
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Not right in the head. Take a hint man.
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@Ladder House Guy
I came for the ladder house comments, seeing none I left.
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@Dagina - not clearly from what we've seen.
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@Dagina - what hint?
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It must have been terrible to be a new junior in a foreign country and get this from a partner on the first day. The progression from feeling a bit awkward to feeling uncomfortable to recognising and unhealthy and potentially dangerous obsession and impending sense of doom and inevitability that accompanies it is horrible. I feel for the poor lady and I hope this man comes to recognise just how one-sided his feelings were.
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@Dagina 04 October 24 10:05: but enough about me!
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Regardless of what messages between Sugimoto and Person B have been posted on RoF, it is important to remember that the SDT considered all the evidence and found as a fact that his attention was unwanted by Person B.
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@10.06 - the thing is they sometimes do. You might be surprised how she'd feel, and nobody is fretting that you might 'contact' her.
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Anonymous 04 October 24 09:46, I'm assuming you are a man because you clearly miss the signs in abundance. This is exactly the type of response most young working females have to conjure up to, yes, fend off creeps, and it is styled out in this manner to protect their careers. He was head of the Belgian office, she's a junior, she was being nice to him as her ultimate boss. Do you know what it is like to work for someone who hits on you daily, fearing that you can't say anything to him or anyone else because of his seniority and how hard it was in the first place to get the job? No? I do, and it's the most awful thing to go through.
Devils advocate; he read the signals wrong. Sure, I doubt it. More like socially inept and a massive douchebag.
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He was head of the office and she was the new junior. What a nightmare. And he doesn't get the power imbalance at all. Of course she was polite to him, probably through gritted teeth.
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"Sugimoto, who was a Registered Foreign Lawyer, received a Section 43 order banning him from the profession for five years, and was fined £36,000. The Brussels Bar declined to take any action and he has since founded his own firm, S&K Brussels."
Sounds like they've really hit him where it hurts there!
Like a savaging by a week-old Labrador made of marshmallows.
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Can we really be sure that Takeshige actually sent those WhatsApps to the junior in question?
Is it not equally likely that she purchased a separate phone, created a new contact called 'Takeshige' on her first device, and then used the second phone to send her original one messages that bore the name 'Takeshige' as the sender? Perhaps doing it because she hated men, wanted to see Original Real Takeshige humiliated, and saw that as part of a first step to establishing a female supremacist matriarchy across the European continent in which men were kept as slaves and/or exotic pets in establishments similar to our modern day zoos?
Aren't those the questions we should be asking?
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@10.15 - we don't know how she felt or how one-sided feelings were. There was no 'potentially dangerous obsession', that's a hysterical overreaction.
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@10.20 - it wasn't about you!
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@10.23 - there hasn't been a finding of fact, and we dont know what evidence any decision was made on. Your're right though, the messages we've seen don't clearly demonstrate 'unwanted attention'.
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@10.28 - there is a mutual power imbalance in these situations.
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@10.28 - sorry that you feel that way about men. But how do you know that the circumstances here were as you describe?
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@10.29 - what do you think the punishment should have been?
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@09:01
He's your sort of chap!
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@anon 04 October 24 10:23 - exactly. So we know the partner's attention was unwanted by Person B.
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@10:46 - sorry you feel that way about men? I'm sorry you feel the need to express yourself in such a derogatory manner. What I feel, as a senior female partner, is comfort that the SDT, who investigated and dealt with the facts and circumstances at hand, made the right decision.
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"God knows how she feels but do not fret dear reader, I have no intention of trying to contact her and find out."
But what if she was happy to hear from you? Perhaps it would be a good experience that gave you both some closure? What harm could a quick conversation do? And what kind of adult wouldn't be able to spare just a few moments of their time for that? Isn't it at least worth a few calls* to find out?
* at various hours of the evening and night, and over the course of several days just to make sure that you catch her at a moment when she's available to answer, of course.
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Maybe she wasn’t kept on and then complained ?
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That poor young lawyer. She tried so hard to get the right balance between not annoying her boss but making it clear she did not need help moving etc. There is no way she encouraged him in any way at all. Far too many man make up a story in their head that a woman likes them which is completely falst. Even if she did don't go out with someone at work. It is not exactly rocket science.
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This was an agreed outcome, which is the same as a guilty plea and sentence. So the partner accepted his wrongdoing, including that the attention he paid to Person B was unwanted.
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@Montgomery what do you mean 'sort of' chap? Is he a chap or isn't he?
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My former boss got caught in a homosexual toilet episode in Aberdeen with a trainee. He was married to a woman with 4 kids. Just shows you.
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@10.51 - we dont know that because we don't know what evidence the decision was based on. From what we've seen there is no evidence that the messages wete unwanted.
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@10.58 - sorry that you feel that being sorry about how 10.28 feels about men is derogatory. You're not a senior female partner, but if you were, you would not feel comfort that the SDT made the right decision based on the evidence you've seen.
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@10.59 - she may well be happy to hear from him/her.
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@Lydia - we really don't know that at all from the messages. The can be interpreted very differently from your interpretation.
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@Not Really a Regulatory Lawyer David - that's not true, the article says that in mitigation he said the texts weren't unwanted.
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@11.10 - shows you what?
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Why didn't she just block him?
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Not sure why you're all carrying on with this. If there's one thing you should have learned (which I will teach you) about me is I never learn my lessons. Looking forward to my third war with WM and Jeanette (aka Jason Bourne) in due course. Best. Laz X
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You have got to love a trier, no?