Legal Futures reports…..
The president of the Queen’s Bench Division has strongly criticised lawyers in the London office of US firm McDermott Will & Emery (MWE) after they allowed a trial to be live-streamed to observers outside the UK without the court’s permission.
The firm has reported its conduct to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the court ordered that the regulator be sent a copy of its judgment “so that this court’s views of the seriousness of the breaches in this case can be made known to it”.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Warby, referred the case to Dame Victoria Sharp because of the misconduct, which saw up to nine individuals around the world, including in the United States, Cyprus and Russia, watch the first three days of the five-day trial via Zoom.
He found this breached section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 (the ban on taking photographs in court), and/or section 9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (ban on sound recordings), and/or his own order.
Sitting with Mrs Justice Andrews, Dame Victoria said the events displayed “a casual attitude towards orders of the court which falls well below the standards to be expected of senior and experienced legal professionals, and a lack of appropriate guidance and supervision of more junior staff, in a matter of importance”.
She added: “Furthermore, until the judge made plain how seriously he viewed what had happened, there appeared to be a lack of focus on and engagement with the seriousness of the breaches.”
The issue was then taken “extremely seriously”, she acknowledged, and partner Ziva Robertson “has frankly accepted her responsibility for what happened and has made a full and unreserved apology to the court.
“We further accept, as did the judge, that this was not a case of deliberate defiance of the court’s order.”
MWE is acting for the claimants in a high-profile defamation case brought by a Russian businessman named in the infamous Steele dossier on links between Donald Trump and Russia.
The trial last month was held in person at the Royal Courts of Justice, with the press and public in a second courtroom watching on a live-stream.
In its application for this, MWE raised the possibility of transmitting the live-stream to participants who were unable to attend in person due to the UK’s Covid-19 quarantine restrictions.
In his order, Warby J was clear that this would not be permitted, but MWE failed to send copies of it to either its clients or Opus 2, the contractor setting up the audio-visual link. Sharp LJ said it was “surprising” that Opus 2 did not ask to see the order.
The breach was discovered by accident on the third day. During the cross-examination of another witness, the judge noticed that one of the witnesses who was giving evidence remotely was on one of the video screens and that he could hear what was going on.
The claimant’s QC, Andrew Caldecott QC, apologised to the court, saying Ms Robertson had had a “slight memory fade” when telling some clients on the first day that they could use the Zoom feed.
The trial ended on Friday 24 July and the judge held a hearing four days later to consider the consequences of the breaches of his order.
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