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Spies tricked a DWF partner into giving them information about a case by taking him for a boozy meal and pretending to be potential clients.
Israeli intelligence company Black Cube were paid millions of pounds by Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego to investigate Vladimir Sklarov, a Ukrainian who allegedly defrauded Pliego out of £310m by assuming the identity of a manager of a private family wealth fund.
DWF acted for Sklarov in the dispute, and Black Cube identified that a partner at the firm, who was named only ‘X’ in the Court of Appeal judgment, was an “optimal subject” for its covert operation.
The spies pretended to be Italian oil executives and told X they were considering instructing him in connection with a genuine multi-million-dollar arbitration between the oil company and the UAE.
After a one hour Zoom meeting with a Black Cube spy who called himself “Mr Ortelli”, X was whisked away on an all-expenses trip to Amsterdam where he was put up in the five-star Dylan Hotel.
Over the course of a five and a half hour dinner, ‘Mr Ortelli’ persuaded X to break his usual sobriety and drink alcohol. He also got the partner talking about his personal life, “building the personal and professional rapport with the target” before steering the conversation to the Sklarov case.
By the time the Black Cube operative began asking X a series of questions about the matter, the DWF partner had been “lulled into a false sense of confidence and security”.
X disclosed sensitive information which included the perceived weaknesses in Sklarov’s case, the impact that the freezing orders were having on him, and DWF’s litigation and settlement strategies.
“Black Cube had picked its target well. The operation was successful”, said Lord Justice Males.
However, the plan foundered when Black Cube presented its secret recordings of the meetings to Pliego’s solicitors at Enyo Law LLP, who knew nothing of the subterfuge.
When they were told about it, the Enyo lawyers refused to look at the video files or listen to the audio files, which resulted in the firm being sacked by Pliego.
Their replacements at LK Law had no such qualms and exhibited the recordings in an application for summary judgment, which was not successful.
The Court of Appeal said that although X “was obviously at fault in revealing information that he should not have revealed”, Black Cube’s dark arts had “no place in litigation in the courts of England and Wales”.
Its deception was a “very serious abuse” of the court process and “a form of corruption” which also “caused the breakdown of the relationship of trust and confidence” between Sklarov and DWF, “depriving the defendants of their first choice of legal team”.
Ruling that “Whether or not Black Cube’s conduct was criminal, it was certainly unlawful”, the court discharged the freezing orders that had been in place against Sklarov.
A DWF spokesman said, “We take this matter very seriously, but as these issues remain subject to ongoing court proceedings, it would not be appropriate to comment further.”
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/spies-tricked-dwf-lawyer-discussing-case-over-boozy-dinner
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