International firm Dechert and its former head of white-collar crime potentially face a mammoth joint trial featuring allegations of involvement in the unlawful detention of two Jordanian lawyers in the United Arab Emirates and hacking a rival firm of solicitors’ emails, the Gazette has learned.
Dechert and retired partner Neil Gerrard are being sued by Karam Al Sadeq for alleged responsibility for his arrest and abduction and orchestrating his unlawful detention in Ras Al Khaimah, where he has been detained since 2014.
Al Sadeq, whose is also suing former Dechert partner David Hughes and current partner Caroline Black, alleges he was ‘interrogated’ by Gerrard, Hughes and Black while being held in conditions amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment. They ‘vehemently deny’ the claims.
His lawyers Stokoe Partnership Solicitors are bringing separate proceedings against Gerrard and Dechert, as well as two private investigators, for alleged involvement in hacking and data theft attacks, allegations which are denied ‘in the strongest possible terms’.
A trial of Stokoe’s case was due to begin next month but has now been adjourned, according to a High Court order seen by the Gazette, which states that the firm’s claim will now be case managed with Al Sadeq’s claim.
Separate proceedings brought by fellow Jordanian lawyer Jihad Quzmar against Gerrard and Dechert will also be considered at a joint case management conference in March, at which the court will decide whether Stokoe’s claim should be tried alongside Al Sadeq and Quzmar’s cases.
The claims are among a number of cases involving Dechert and former police officer Gerrard in recent years: their former client Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) brought a high-profile claim against Dechert, Gerrard and the Serious Fraud Office, accusing Gerrard of leaking confidential information to newspapers and the SFO in order to provide the ‘fodder he needed to expand his investigation’ into allegations of corruption at the former FTSE 100 company.
The trial of ENRC’s claims against Dechert and Gerrard for alleged negligence and the SFO for alleged misfeasance in public office and inducing breach of contract, which are denied, concluded in September and judgment is awaited.
The firm is also accused in another claim of involvement in the hacking of airline tycoon Farhad Azima’s emails in relation to a case between him and the Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority.
Gerrard is said to have put a private investigator through ‘perjury school’ to rehearse a false account of how they obtained Azima’s hacked emails at a ‘small boutique hotel’ in Switzerland ahead of a High Court trial.
Dechert and Gerrard ‘strenuously deny’ any part in the hacking or dissemination of Azima’s data, in their written defence to Azima’s hacking claim.
