Katy Dowell
Freshfields secures Guardian gag for Barclays
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Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has secured a gagging order against The Guardian on behalf of Barclays Bank, forcing the newspaper to remove some of the bank’s internal documents from its website.
Paul Lomas
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has secured a temporary gagging order against The Guardian on behalf of Barclays Bank, forcing the newspaper to remove some of the bank’s internal documents from its website.
The newspaper published the documents, which are alleged to show that Barclays avoided UK tax bills worth millions of pounds, in its print edition on Tuesday.
Mr Justice Ouseley granted the injunction on Tuesday after Freshfields partner Paul Lomas (pictured) complained on behalf of Barclays that seven documents revealing details of ‘Project Knight’ were the property of the banking giant. In addition, Lomas argued, the documents would have been obtained wrongfully and the whistleblower who had leaked them was in breach of confidentiality.
At a High Court hearing today, Hugh Tomlinson QC of Matrix Chambers argued that The Guardian should be allowed to put the documents back on its website. Brick Court’s Charles Hollander QC represented Barclays.
The newspaper will find out tomorrow morning whether it can publish the seven disputed documents.
The Guardian argued that Project Knight was a codename given by Barclays to a tax scheme put together in a $4bn deal with US bank Branch Banking & Trust Co.
The newspaper alleged that Barclays’ structured capital markets (SCM) division sought approval for the 2007 plan, which would have seen its Luxembourg operation Barlux invest $16bn (£11.4bn) in US loans.
The scheme, which Slaughter & May advised Barclays on, would have created significant tax benefits through a complex structure that spanned Cayman Isle companies, Delaware in the US and Luxembourg subsidiaries, The Guardian reported.
The documents published by The Guardian showed that Barclays was advised by US firm Sullivan & Cromwell that it would not need to disclose the scheme to the US authorities, although the bank said it voluntarily disclosed the scheme to HM Revenue & Customs.
The newspaper obtained the memos from Liberal Democrat deputy leader Vince Cable after they had been leaked by a Barclays insider.
It is understood that The Guardian, represented by Olswang head of media litigation Geraldine Proudler, plans to appeal the injunction.
Readers' comments (3)
Anonymous | 19-Mar-2009 4:26 pm
Winners and Losers
Given that Slaughter & May is the chosen firm of the government shouldn't it be doing something to promote diversity in the work place as opposed to choosing law graduates who are likely to have attended red brick universities after receiving a privileged education from a private school paid for by mum and dad.
Nobody is saying that these students don't deserve a place on S&M training scheme, but rather it should be setting an example to others and be proud of its diversity statistics.
And the government should be doing more to encourage those it pays for legal advice to be more diverse in their selection process.
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anon | 19-Mar-2009 4:32 pm
Winners and Losers
The article clearly shows that Slaughter's decision has been made due to the sheer number of excellent and exceptional NON-LAW candidates already applying. Law firms always allocated percentage of intakes from both non-law and law backgrounds and it is clear that the non-law candidates have applied in their abundance already showing their quality. It is important to get a mix of backgrounds and skill sets in a modern firm, or for any business for that matter, so recruiting from both backgrounds is important and diversent.
But what do I know? I'm just an interested, if bemused, reader.
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Anonymous | 19-Mar-2009 10:42 pm
Big ticket
How on earth can you sensibly prohibit the publication of documents that are to be found all over the web? This makes the judge involved look a complete fool! The fact that Barclays has already taken plenty of taxpayers money in the form of insurance on bonds sales makes this even worse.
Isn't it time the legal and banking professions started thinking a little more about the wider public interest? The alternative is not pleasant (i.e. put yourself in the shoes of a Russian tax expert circa. 1915)
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