There are technical conflicts of interest and there’s…well blatant abuse. Any large firm will have had the two clients and one deal, conflict or no conflict dilemma. Hell what are Chinese walls for other than to creatively help lawyers circumvent that old professional conduct issue (a fine example of lawyers really thinking outside the box). It seems that for one consultant at Hammonds, sitting on one side of a Chinese wall just wasn’t enough; he allegedly advised a businessman on a $14 million company purchase while simultaneously receiving secret payments to work for the seller.

According to The Times Christopher Haan, a former Hammonds partner who became a consultant in 2000, is accused of receiving secret payments totalling over £400,000 while he was advising Albertino Abela, a catering magnate, on the $14 million purchase of an Italian company.

Despite charging Mr Abela £1.4 million in legal fees, Mr Haan was clandestinely also advising a Mr Baadarani, who was selling his stake in the Italian company to Mr Abela. The business later turned out to be worth substantially less than the sale price

Somewhat stating the obvious Clive Lewis, QC, for Mr Abela said, “This is not a case of a technical conflict of interest but of an intentional preferment of one client’s interests over another.” Quite.

Hammonds said: “We are fully defending the claims brought by Albert Abela which we believe to be without merit."