Legal Futures
A high-profile Italian lawyer who failed to declare various adverse findings about himself when applying to be called to the English Bar has been reprimanded and fined £50,000 – an exceptionally high sum for a Bar disciplinary tribunal.
Gabriele Giambrone, Milan-based global managing partner of Giambrone & Partners and head of its European litigation and arbitration team, was called in 2021 and is described on the Bar Standards Board’s (BSB) register as an employed barrister at the firm’s London office.
The full reasons for the decision have yet to be published but the summary said Mr Giambrone admitted five of the six charges that he made a false call declaration.
He answered ‘no’ to the question of whether he had ever been subject to any investigations or proceedings by a professional or regulatory body, when in 2016 he had been suspended for six months by the Bar Association of Palermo.
Mr Giambrone was also previously on the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s register of European lawyers but in 2013 the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal ordered that his name be removed from it after finding a host of accounting irregularities at his firm, called Giambrone Law, while acting for clients in overseas property deals. The tribunal described the firm’s accounts as a “shambles”.
£50k fine for lawyer over omissions when applying to join Bar
