A Tory MP used parliamentary privilege Tuesday night to name “amoral” lawyers he claimed had allowed Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” to intimidate the free press in Britain.
Bob Seely, the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, told the House of Commons prominent legal firms were in effect offering “legalised intimidation” to oligarchs to silence their rivals.
He named four senior lawyers, some of whom were involved in legal claims against HarperCollins and journalist Catherine Belton over the book Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West.
Mr Seely questioned the morality of John Kelly from Harbottle & Lewis, Geraldine Proudler from CMS, Nigel Tait from Carter Ruck, Hugh Tomlinson QC from Matrix.
“You have got to wonder about the reputations these people are going to end up with in a few years’ time,” he said.
“Even if they’re behaving as well as maybe they might, maybe they’re really lovely people. But maybe their amorality is really going to begin to bite their reputations in a way that will be uncomfortable. How on earth have we allowed this to happen?
“A free press should be intimidating kleptocrats and criminals. Why have we got to the position in our society, a free society, where we have kleptocrats and criminals and oligarchs intimidating a free media?
“We have a coalition, not of the willing but of the woeful. Oligarchs, Putin’s henchmen, teaming up with amoral lawyers.”
He accused leading legal firms of setting up a “one-stop corruption shop” to offer a form of “legalised intimidation” to silence rivals, journalists and authors.
Mr Seely said there was an “unregulated private eye business” that was also now collecting kompromat on people in the UK.
“People have the right to advice and legal representation but they are abusing it very, very badly in our society at the moment,” he said.
The role of leading London law firms in representing those close to Putin has come under increasing scrutiny in recent days.
The Labour MP Ben Bradshaw had last week called for any law firms acting on behalf of oligarchs in allegedly challenging sanctions to be named and potentially subject to restrictions themselves.
“(They should be) not only named and shamed, but any law firm or any British institution that works on behalf of any sanctioned Russian should themselves be subjected to the same sanctions,” he said.
In a statement Carter Ruck said: “The claims made against Carter-Ruck are misconceived and are rejected entirely. In addition to other matters, we are not working for any Russian individuals, companies or entities seeking to challenge, overturn, frustrate or minimise sanctions.
“We have never acted for Russian individuals, companies or entities seeking to challenge sanctions. We condemn the Russian government’s decision to invade Ukraine. We are not acting for, and will not be acting for, any individual, company or entity associated with the Putin regime in any matter or context, whether sanctions-related or otherwise.”
