By Gabriel Princewill-
A City firm which disobeyed a court order by allowing a libel trial to be live streamed to clients abroad has reported itself to the Solicitors Regulation Authourity(SRA).
Solicitors from U.S-headquartered McDermott Will & Emery had been referred to the divisional court for an urgent hearing by the judge in the trial after falling ‘far short’ of the standards required of them.
Judge Mr Justice Warby, presiding over the case, found misconduct after proceedings were live-streamed to individuals in the US, Cyprus and Russia without the court’s permission, and without any application having been made. Seven individuals had used a Zoom link in remote locations to access the trial, with information that possibly two more had done so.
A spokesperson from the SRA told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”we are still gathering all the evidence in relation to this case and can’t discuss the details until our investigations are complete.
All law firms have an obligation to report themselves where they believe they have breached our codes of conduct. Failure to do so would increase the disciplinary action against such firms. The actions we take always depends on the severity of the breach”.
The case involves company provided corporate intelligence services, was engaged between June and December 2016 by a consultancy based in Washington DC, Fusion.
Worrying
Sitting in the urgent hearing in the case between Gubarev & Anor v Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd & Anor, Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the Queen’s Bench Division, said the issue was ‘deeply worrying’.
The judge directed that a copy of her ruling be sent to the regulator to reflect the seriousness of the breaches were in this case.
The court heard MWE had made a series of demands about access to hearing rooms in ‘peremptory and inappropriate terms’ ahead of the hybrid five-day hearing last month
Judge Warby said transmitting video and audio recordings of the hearing, and transmitting them to a second courtroom was fundamentally permissible, but live streaming was prohibited.
On the third day of trial, during the cross-examination of a witness, the judge noticed that one of the remote witnesses was on one of the video screens and could obviously hear what was going on. The judge said that he was surprised to see the witness and had not authorised it.
The partner responsible for the conduct of the case apologised that evening and sent a list of seven individuals directly connected to the claimants to whom the Zoom link had been sent.
Summarising her concerns, Sharp said:
‘Even if the explanations are to be taken at face value however, the picture that they paint is an unhappy one, demonstrating 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.
‘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.’
A spokesman for MWE said it respected the judgement of the court and regretted its error in this matter.
He added: ‘We note that the court did not find these actions to be deliberate and recognised our self-reporting to the SRA. We continue to act with the rigour and precision on which our firm was founded.’