Growing Newcastle law firm Square One Law could soon be set to launch a second base in Teesside.

The firm, which is based at the Fleming Business Centre in Jesmond , has grown substantially since it was founded in 2011 and is estimated to generate revenues of £6m in its next accounts.

Square One has put off expanding outside of its single office, choosing instead to focus on developing its internal IT capabilities. But now that the work has been completed, senior partner Ian Gilthorpe said that the firm may look to open its second office in Teesside.

Mr Gilthorpe said: “We are doing an increasing amount of work on Teesside and that is an option.

“We haven’t looked at our options until we have got this IT system sorted and we have been growing pretty rapidly here.”

He added: “We are doing an increasing amount of work on Teesside, and I think that it is very interesting the way the mayor and the Combined Authority are doing a great job of promoting Teesside.

“So I think this is an area where we have an interest.”

Square One has been acting for a range of clients on Teesside, including Ablem which has instructed the firm to provide advice during the decommissioning of the Brent Delta Platform.

Back in Newcastle , Square One has grown its headcount to around 70 members of staff since the firm launched in 2011.

This week the firm continued its growth after hiring Adrian Hill to work as joint head of property. He will work alongside co-head Barney Frith.

Mr Hill has worked at a number of major law firms including Muckle LLP and Eversheds, where he was head of real estate in Leeds.

During his three decade long career Mr Hill has worked for a range of clients such as Muse, Langtree, Urban Splash, Taylor Wimpy, UK Land Estates, Rushbond plc, Igloo, IVG and Northumberland Estates.

Commenting on his appointment, he said: “Square One Law is at an interesting stage of its development as it now looks to scale up. The challenging marketplace means all businesses need a clear strategy, strong leadership and focus on customer demands.

“I’m looking forward to being part of the team who will help the firm develop and continue to act for leading businesses in the region and nationally.”

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    --  The LegalShield Real Estate Index rose (improved) 0.6 point to 102.4 in
        October, but is down 1 percent this year. The Index, a leading indicator
        of existing home sales, suggests that home sales are unlikely to improve
        in 2017. If builders begin to overcome significant hurdles and housing
        starts pick up, home sales may improve in early 2018.
    --  The LegalShield Foreclosure Index fell (improved) 5.4 points to 58.5 in
        October, and is down 19 percent year-over-year. This index is an advance
        measure of foreclosure activity and suggests that foreclosures should
        remain subdued in the short term."

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Philippa English of Holman Fenwick Willan (HFW) Middle East was named ‘Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year’ at the Annual Gala, with DLA Piper Middle East LLP awarded ‘Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year’.

Some of the UAE’s most outstanding lawyers have been recognised by their peers at the sixth annual DIFC Academy of Law Annual Gala, which took place at the JW Marriot Marquis hotel in Dubai.

The Annual Gala is organised by the Academy of Law, with all proceeds going towards a range of initiatives, including the Academy of Law Pro Bono Programme fund, which also includes CSR initiatives, and the Academy Scholarship Programme, for high-achieving UAE law students. 

David Gallo, Director, Academy of Law, said: “The Annual Gala is an opportunity for the legal community to celebrate its collective achievements of the past year. An event organised by lawyers for lawyers, an undoubted highlight is the chance to honour the outstanding contributions of firms and individual practitioners. On behalf of the Academy, I congratulate all the winners and thank all those who were part of making the sixth annual Legal Gala such a success.”

Following a live vote by over 750 gathered members of the UAE’s local and international legal community, Luke Tapp, Senior Associate, Pinsent Masons, was named ‘Young Lawyer of the Year’ for exhibiting the skill and professionalism of a lawyer beyond their years over the last 12 months. For his contribution to the legal profession, Jamie Liddington, Partner, Head of Employment, Hadef & Partners, was voted ‘Lawyers’ Lawyer of the Year.’

Separately, a panel of judges from the DIFC Academy of Law selected Clyde & Co. as ‘Legal Education Law Firm of the Year’ for the strength of their commitment to provide legal education to improve the competencies of legal professionals.

In recognition of their commitment to the programme, Philippa English of Holman Fenwick Willan (HFW) Middle East was named ‘Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year’ at the Annual Gala, with DLA Piper Middle East LLP awarded ‘Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year’.

Philippa English added: “The Legal Gala provided a great opportunity for the legal community to get together to show our commitment to the Academy of Law, as well as our support for our peers. The Academy does such valuable work in supporting the wider DIFC community and I have been lucky enough to be able to assist them with some of the many initiatives they offer over the years. HFW and I remain committed to the Pro Bono initiative both and will continue to support going forward.”

The Pro Bono Programme is designed to ensure that professional legal advice is available to anyone who can demonstrate that they are unable to afford legal representation. Volunteer legal professionals hold clinics each week at the DIFC Dispute Resolution Authority offices, with more than 600 people receiving help so far in 2017.

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Harvey Weinstein allegedly hired intelligence agencies to help stop sexual assault accusations against him from being published, according to a new report from Ronan Farrow. Weinstein has called the new claims “fiction.”

Per the exposé published in The New Yorker, the disgraced Hollywood producer allegedly hired private security agencies, among them Black Cube, to use their operatives to seek out information about his accusers.

“It is a fiction to suggest that any individuals were targeted or suppressed at any time,” Weinstein’s spokesperson told The New Yorker.

Since Farrow’s earlier New Yorker piece and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s New York Times report last month, many Hollywood actresses have publicly accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, assault and rape, among them Rose McGowan. In response to those allegations, Weinstein’s spokesperson said, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein.”

Ashley Judd Feels Supported After Telling Her Story

However, according to Farrow’s most recent report, Weinstein used the investigators to collect information to help prevent such allegations from being published. In an additional statement to The New Yorker, Weinstein’s spokesperson said there were “many inaccuracies and wild conspiracy theories promoted in this article.”

Among the alleged tactics was a private investigator that, using the false identity “Diana Filip,” reached out to McGowan, claiming she worked for a wealth management firm and was launching a project to prevent female discrimination at work.

Claiming she wanted to hire McGowan to speak at an upcoming gala, the two met and continued a correspondence. However, according to Farrow’s sources, “Filip” had been an alias for an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces and was working as a Black Cube agent. According to the report, when Farrow showed the actress a photo of the agent, she recognized her as “Filip.” Farrow said he was also contacted via email by Filip a week after McGowan mentioned that she had spoken to him for his piece, but he did not respond. Her cell phone numbers have been disconnected and her company’s website has been taken down, per the report.

Paz de la Huerta Accuses Harvey Weinstein of Raping Her Twice

“Why didn’t I, @rosemcgowan, @RoArquette @AnnabellSciorra speak up earlier? We were followed by ex-Mossad agents. Isn’t that terrifying? Very,” Asia Argento tweeted after Farrow’s report was published.

However, the investigators did not allegedly only target actresses for information on their claims, but also journalists exploring their stories. In addition to Farrow, New York reporter Ben Wallace said he was also contacted by and met with the same woman, except she had posed as a woman named Anna with an allegation against Weinstein. According to Farrow’s sources, the woman had also emailed Kantor.

In a statement to The New Yorker, Black Cube said, “It is Black Cube’s policy to never discuss its clients with any third party, and to never confirm or deny any speculation made with regard to the company’s work. Black Cube supports the work of many leading law firms around the world, especially in the US, gathering evidence for complex legal processes, involving commercial disputes, among them uncovering negative campaigns…It should be highlighted that Black Cube applies high moral standards to its work, and operates in full compliance with the law of any jurisdiction in which it operates–strictly following the guidance and legal opinions provided by leading law firms from around the world.” The contract with the firm also specified that all of its work would be obtained “by legal means and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

Gwyneth Paltrow ”Happy” to Play ”Small Part” in Harvey Weinstein’s Downfall

According to the report, David Boies, who served as one of Weinstein’s attorneys and whose firm was representing The New York Times, confirmed to Farrow that his firm contracted and paid two of the agencies and that he received reports from investigators. “We should not have been contracting with and paying investigators that we did not select and direct,” he told Farrow. “At the time, it seemed a reasonable accommodation for a client, but it was not thought through, and that was my mistake. It was a mistake at the time.”

He told Farrow that he advised Weinstein “that the story could not be stopped by threats or influence and that the only way the story could be stopped was by convincing the Times that there was no rape … If evidence could be uncovered to convince the Times the charges should not be published, I did not believe, and do not believe, that that would be averse to the Times’ interest.”

Additionally, per the article, Weinstein allegedly “enlisted” journalists like Dylan Howard, chief content officer of The National Enquirer’s publisher, American Media Inc., to get information against his accusers. Howard reportedly shared with Weinstein information one of his reporters got from a call with Elizabeth Avellan, who had been married to Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez previously had a relationship with McGowan. As Avellan told Farrow, the reporter allegedly “pressed” her for unflattering comments about the actress, recorded the conversation and then Howard allegedly told Weinstein about it.

Donna Karan Sorry for Initially Defending Harvey Weinstein, Wondering If Women Were Asking for It

In response to the report, Howard, who also formerly oversaw a television-production agreement with Weinstein, told The New Yorker in a statement, “Absent a corporate decision to terminate the agreement with The Weinstein Company, I had an obligation to protect AMI’s interests by seeking out–but not publishing–truthful information about people who Mr. Weinstein insisted were making false claims against him. To the extent I provided ‘off the record’ information to Mr. Weinstein about one of his accusers–at a time when Mr. Weinstein was denying any harassment of any woman–it was information which I would never have allowed AMI to publish on the internet or in its magazines.”

“I always separated those two roles carefully and completely–and resisted Mr. Weinstein’s repeated efforts to have AMI titles publish favorable stories about him or negative articles about his accusers,” he added in the statement.

Weinstein’s spokesperson added to the outlet, “In regard to Mr. Howard, he has served as the point person for American Media’s long-standing business relationship with The Weinstein Company. Earlier this year, Mr. Weinstein gave Mr. Howard a news tip that Mr. Howard agreed might make a good story. Mr. Howard pursued the tip and followed up with Mr. Weinstein as a courtesy, but declined to publish any story.”

Rose McGowan Says She Was Offered $1 Million to Keep Harvey Weinstein Allegations Quiet

Per the report, firms compiled photos of the producer with his accusers and thorough profiles of the women and the journalists reporting their stories, including personal details that could potentially discredit them.

Additionally, Weinstein allegedly used former employees, Pamela Lubell and Denise Doyle Chambers, to make lists of colleagues the investigators could use to determine if there were more accusers. Doyle Chambers declined an interview request from Farrow, but Lubell told him that she had been pitching Weinstein an app when he asked her to write a book about Miramax, his production company.

For the book, he allegedly asked her to make a list of employees and contact them. However, he later apparently said they were putting a hold on the book, but wanted her and Chambers to call people on the list to see if they had been contacted by the press. In early September, he allegedly asked them to call people connected to actresses. “We didn’t know these people, and all of a sudden this was something very different from what we signed up for,” she told Farrow.

“Any ‘lists’ that were prepared included names of former employees and others who were relevant to the research and preparation of a book about Miramax,” Weinstein’s spokesperson told The New Yorker. “Former employees conducting interviews for the book reported receiving unwanted contacts from the media.”

In a tweet issued early Tuesday, hours after Farrow’s report was published, McGowan wrote, “Here is my official statement: CHECK MOTHERF—— MATE PIGFACE.”

Original Post: Harvey Weinstein Hired Investigators to Get Information From Rose McGowan and Other Accusers: Report

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President Trump, shown speaking to reporters at the White House, has called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act a “ridiculous” law.

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President Trump has called it “ridiculous,” a “horrible law” that made it difficult for U.S. companies to compete overseas.

But the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars businesses from paying bribes to overseas officials, remains a key part of U.S. efforts to combat global corruption.

Now one study is showing the Trump administration’s use of the law may be declining, even as administration officials say they’re committed to enforcing it.

The law was passed in 1977. Some 400 U.S. companies, including big names like Lockheed and Chiquita, had acknowledged they had paid off foreign officials to win business.

“Many companies were making routine bribes to the heads of governments and others in countries, just to simply buy the business,” said Meredith McGehee, chief of policy, programs and strategy at Issue One, a nonprofit organization that looks at money in politics.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act applies to any company with a U.S. connection, including foreign firms traded on U.S. exchanges. Companies that have been prosecuted over the years include Siemens, Goodyear, Daimler AG, Alcoa and Halliburton.

“Essentially, [the law] makes it illegal for companies and officers of those companies, to influence foreign officials with anything of value, any bribes,” McGehee said.

“And ‘bribes’ is defined very broadly; there’s not a need for a quid pro quo. It’s essentially anything of value that you are giving to influence a foreign official to promote your business, or to promote getting a contract or any other benefit for your company,” she added.

When the law was first passed, the United States was something of an outlier because many other governments did little to stop bribery. Over time, however, attitudes changed. Today, governments around the world are much more likely to cooperate in pursuing wrongdoers.

Still, the 1977 law has its critics, like Trump, who say companies can’t compete when barred from paying bribes in places where doing so is routine.

“Now, every other country goes into these places, and they do what they have to do. It’s a horrible law and it should be changed. I mean, we’re like the policeman for the world. It’s ridiculous,” Trump said in a 2012 interview on CNBC.

Such comments have raised questions about the Trump administration’s interest in enforcing the law.

The New York Law Journal recently published an article saying Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement proceedings have declined since Trump took office. The authors, Steven Witzel and Arthur Kutoroff, counted the number of new proceedings brought this year by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, and compared them to similar periods under the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

“In general terms, there’s been a dramatic drop-off from the average over the previous 10 years, to what we’re seeing in the Trump administration,” says Witzel, head of the white collar defense and government investigations practice at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

But Witzel concedes the drop may have happened for good reasons, such as “administrative issues” tied to the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations.

Southern Illinois University Law School professor Mike Koehler, who writes the FCPA Professor blog, says comparing enforcement records among different administrations is difficult, in part because the data sets are small, with relatively few cases being pursued in any given year.

Koehler also notes the number of proceedings tends to accelerate toward the end of the year. “I fully expect the fourth quarter to be an active quarter,” he says.

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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks about the anti-bribery law at the 2017 Ethics and Compliance Initiative conference in Washington, D.C., in April.

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Speaking at an ethics and compliance conference last April, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said his department remains committed to enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

“We will continue to strongly enforce the FCPA and other anti-corruption laws,” he said. But Sessions also voiced a concern expressed by many business leaders and politicians over the years: “You just simply can’t have a situation in which your competitors pay bribes and you don’t.”

Witzel says the administration’s enforcement practices should be watched closely.

“If there’s a continued sharp decline in FCPA enforcement proceedings, that has the potential to undermine the credibility of the United States’ commitment to combating international corruption,” he says.

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For John Smagula, every once in a while a student comes along who truly inspires him.

Conor Devlin was one of those students to Smagula, the director of the China Rule of Law Program based in Beijing.

Devlin, a 2017 Beasley School of Law alumnus, died on Oct. 27 at the age of 25 of unknown causes, the Inquirer reported.

Smagula and Devlin would often talk over meals or when crossing paths at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where the China Rule of Law Program is based. They discussed Devlin’s passion for the Chinese language, his drive to succeed at the university and his eagerness to practice law in China, Smagula wrote in an email.

“I will sorely miss these conversations, as I was eager to follow his career path,” Smagula added. “The China market is challenging, and few can make sense of it, but I thought Conor would become one of them.”

Devlin graduated in May 2017 and also earned a Chinese law degree in 2016 in a partnership between the law school and Tsinghua University.

Found unresponsive by a relative in his apartment in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, Devlin’s cause of death is still being determined by the Delaware County Medical Examiner, the Inquirer reported.

Devlin was loved by many at Temple, including his tight-knit group of friends from the law school and professors in the abroad program for which he worked.

Jency Mathew met Devlin during their law school orientation in 2014, quickly forming a friend group with other first-year law students Kara Heininger and Christian Elliott.

“The four of us became good friends throughout law school, just hanging out on weekends,” Mathew said.

Staying close in their first year of school, Mathew and Heininger threw Devlin a going-away party before he spent a year at Tsinghua University.

“When he came back for his third year, Conor was such a good friend that our friendship just picked up where it left off,” Mathew said.

Mathew will remember Devlin most for his witty remarks that were always “brilliant,” she said.

“I don’t know if anyone who wasn’t really good friends with him would describe him as a class-clown type,” she added. “But the people that did know him really well, he was hysterical.”

Despite being well-traveled, Devlin was very modest, Heininger said.

“He’s seen a lot, done a lot, but never bragged about it,” she said. “You wouldn’t know until you got into a personal conversation with him, he was just very modest but incredibly smart.”

“He was one of those people that would constantly surprise you,” she added. “He was pretty quiet, but as soon as you talked to him, you found out…he had really amazing life experiences.”

Devlin, Heininger, Mathew and Elliott had all stayed in contact after they graduated in May.

But at the end of the day, Devlin loved his family and being a good uncle to his nieces and nephews, Heininger said.

“He was always looking forward to hanging out with them and doing everything he could to be a good uncle,” she added.

Devlin was a member of student organizations like International Law Society, Business Law Society and the Brehon Law Society for Irish law professionals.

Louis Thompson, the assistant dean for the graduate and international programs in the Beasley School of Law, wrote that the Temple Law community “joins with Conor’s family in mourning his loss,” in a statement.

“He was a remarkable young man and had much to offer our profession,” the statement read. “He will be greatly missed.”

During his time at Temple, Devlin worked at the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office in Norristown, Pennsylvania, as a legal intern. He also interned internationally at two Chinese law firms in Beijing and Shandong, China, according to his LinkedIn page.

“Conor had a promising future,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele told the Inquirer. “To see him die so young is very sad, and my heart goes out the family.”

Devlin’s family asks that memorial donations be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, Tennessee 38105.

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It was to be a little tax haven in Nova Scotia.

The idea was simple: The companies would be registered in Bermuda but the people processing the paperwork would be in Halifax.

Appleby, the leading offshore law firm in the Paradise Papers leak, explored this vision for outsourcing its back office administrative functions in 2007.

With direct Bermuda to Halifax flights, “very reasonable operating costs” and “very significant payroll tax rebates,” the case for Halifax was strong.

But Appleby needed assurances that its clients, who had incorporated in a zero-tax jurisdiction, wouldn’t have to pay tax to Canada.

No problem, wrote Halifax lawyer Jim Cruickshank, who was hired to analyze the legal issues.

“We do not believe the activities of (Appleby) could in any way constitute your clients ‘carrying on business in Nova Scotia,’” Cruickshank wrote in a memo to Appleby.

What about extending offshore financial secrecy to the new office in Canada? For this, Cruickshank had a creative solution.

“We believe a ‘paperless office’ and ‘dummy terminals’ for (Appleby) would provide significant but not complete practical immunity from search and seizure by Canadian authorities.”

While the Halifax outsourcing project would never come to fruition, Appleby’s internal records reveal a preoccupation with secrecy that pervades tax havens. For this reason, governments around the world are targeting the law firms that operate in tax havens, to force them to reveal the hidden transactions that deprive public coffers of trillions of dollars each year.

Estimates put Canada’s own losses to offshore activity at $6 billion to $7.8 billion each year.

But tax haven secrecy has, once again, been pierced by a massive leak.

Unlike last year’s Panama Papers leak, which exposed Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, a firm that has been criticized as a bad apple in the offshore world, the Paradise Papers leak reveals the business of one of the world’s most prestigious blue-chip law firms, Appleby, which caters to the world’s biggest multinational corporations and the wealthiest families on the planet.

Appearing in Appleby’s files are:

Two generations of Liberal Party chief fundraisers, Leo Kolber and Stephen Bronfman, linked through a Cayman Islands trust fund. Through a lawyer, Kolber and Bronfman said they always acted “properly and

ethically, including fully complying with all applicable laws.”

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who sat on the board of Said Holdings, a Bermuda company controlled by Syrian-Saudi businessman Wafic Said. Said was a key intermediary in a British-Saudi oil-for-arms deal that led to a US$400-million criminal fine for bribery in 2010 against British airplane manufacturer BAE. Mulroney’s lawyer said he is “proud” to have served on the board and considers Said “a good friend.” Said said he is “proud of the role I played” in the arms deal.

Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien, who is listed as having received options in a Madagascar oil venture registered in Bermuda. He confirmed he consulted for the company in 2007 but says he never received any options.

Paul Martin’s former company, Canada Steamship Lines, which was one of Appleby’s “biggest clients.” CSL said it “uphold(s) the highest ethical and business standards,” while a spokesperson for Martin said he “has not been involved in CSL in over a quarter century.”

Much of the activity in tax havens is legal, and Appleby considers itself an ethical leader in the offshore industry. Documents found in the 6.8 million internal Appleby files in the leak show the firm was aware of multiple cases where it accepted dirty money.

The emails, client records, bank applications, court papers and other files were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the Star and CBC/Radio-Canada. They represent the inner workings of Appleby from the 1950s until 2016.

Canada is a big part of Appleby’s business. With more than 2,700 Canadians and 560 Canadian businesses named in the Appleby database — five times more Canadians than were in the Panama Papers — Canada is the firm’s fourth-biggest market behind the U.S., the U.K. and China.

Appleby has administered 1,450 offshore corporations and trusts with Canadian owners, officers or addresses, mostly in Bermuda. Its lawyers made regular trips to Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver to drum up business, meeting with accountants and lawyers.

Appleby billed Canadian clients and law firms at least $12 million from 2009 to 2013, documents show.

Canada has a long history of working closely with Caribbean tax havens, said Université de Quebec à Montreal Prof. Alain Deneault, who has written extensively on the subject. “We’re so connected to tax havens they’ve become an integral part of our economy. In the end, all the large Canadian companies and family fortunes are structured to circumvent Canadian laws in such a way to allow the owners to avoid taxes.”

Among the Canadian companies who hired Appleby to set up offshore businesses are:

The Montreal Canadiens set up two trusts in Bermuda, including an employee benefit fund that was shut down in 2010. The organization says its offshore business was “in full compliance with the existing Canadian tax legislation.”

Food giant Loblaw says it paid all appropriate taxes on the two subsidiaries it set up with Appleby’s help in Barbados and Bermuda in 2005. They were used to insure cardholder balances from its President’s Choice Financial MasterCard, according to leaked documents.

Hydro-Quebec incorporated an offshore company in Bermuda to invest in power generation projects in China, even though the company is exempt from income tax in Canada. A representative for the utility said the company was dissolved in 2007 and capital gains taxes were paid.

Brookfield, a Canadian investment giant, set up Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP) in Bermuda to hold international investments. Documents show how the company set up 29 corporations and limited partnerships in nine jurisdictions in a 48-step “specific sequencing” to “ensure” that units of BIP “are not taxable Canadian property.” A company spokesperson said “the tax treatment of partnerships like BIP . . . is the same whether they are domiciled in Bermuda, Canada or the U.S.”

Appleby also performed offshore services for many regular Canadians, including doctors, engineers, geologists, housewives, a police officer, a speech pathologist and a retired admiral in the Canadian navy.

The database also contains a Bermudan company incorporated by Gerald Bull, the late Quebec engineer who attempted to develop a supergun to shoot satellites into space but ended up working on a massive cannon for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Also in Appleby’s files is online gambling baron Isai Scheinberg, who started the online gambling site PokerStars but ran afoul of U.S. authorities and is now actively wanted by the FBI.

While Appleby prides itself on its high ethical standards and has been named “offshore law firm of the year,” internal documents reveal that it hasn’t always succeeded in keeping out questionable clients.

“Some of the crap we accept is amazing totally amazing,” state presentation notes prepared by Appleby’s director of compliance in 2011. “We have a current case where we are sitting on about 400K that is definitely tainted and it is not easy to deal with.”

“MONEY LAUNDERING IS A DIRTY CRIME,” screamed notes accompanying the PowerPoint presentation. “THERE IS USUALLY ALWAYS A VICTIM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PILE AND A RICH PERSON AT THE TOP.”

The firm did not answer detailed questions from the ICIJ and the Star.

“We are an offshore law firm who advises clients on legitimate and lawful ways to conduct their business. We do not tolerate illegal behaviour. It is true that we are not infallible. Where we find that mistakes have happened we act quickly to put things right and we make the necessary notifications to the relevant authorities,” Appleby stated after it was contacted about the leak.

Appleby is already publicly associated with the Bermuda Longtail Trust, one of the biggest tax scams in recent Canadian history.

The scam, originally revealed by a Star investigation in 2007, duped almost 10,000 people, including nurses, teachers and at least one police officer, into making donations to bogus charities in order to receive a tax receipt worth four times more. Appleby administered the trust for Canadian businessman Edward Furtak. The trust had collected more than $100 million by the time the Canada Revenue Agency got wise to the scheme, and a group of clients sued. Appleby settled the class action for $17.5 million last summer. The firm admitted no wrongdoing.

As governments around the world have turned their attention to cracking down on offshore tax evasion — including almost $1 billion pledged to the CRA in the last two years — Appleby has publicly defended the use of tax havens (also known as “offshore financial centres” or OFCs).

“The myth perpetuated by the OECD and G-20 nations is that OFCs encourage tax evasion,” wrote two Appleby lawyers in the Cayman Islands Journal. “In reality, excessive tax burdens in welfare states encourage tax evasion, leading to capital flight to OFCs. Logic dictates that if politicians wish to eliminate capital flight, they should lower their country’s oppressive taxes.”

Appleby’s Canadian lawyers practised what they preached.

All of them left the country to avoid paying Canadian taxes, according to an email sent by the firm’s managing partner in the BVI, Michael Burns.

Twenty-one of Appleby’s 182 lawyers spread out across the globe were educated in Canada, one indication of the surprisingly strong Canadian presence in Caribbean tax havens.

Burns, who declined to comment for this article, worried that a Halifax branch would draw these tax expats back into the reach of the CRA.

“Are you able to provide us with any general guidance as to any possible concerns that might arise, such as a liability to Canadian tax?” Burns inquired of his contacts in Halifax.

The CRA returned to Appleby with warm reassurances that no taxes in Canada would be owing if the firm decided to come. An advanced tax ruling in 2008 guaranteed Appleby that any future business in Halifax would not require staff — or its clients — to pay Canadian taxes.

Despite that green light, the firm ultimately bailed on the plan to bring a little piece of Bermudan tax haven to Halifax.

“With regret, we are not now likely to take up the opportunity at this time of proceeding with the Halifax Outsourcing Platform,” Burns wrote in 2009. “Isle of Man was already our top choice for outsourcing, for many reasons, although Halifax was a very close second.”

With files from Will Fitzgibbon, ICIJ. Data analysis by Andrew Bailey and Valerie Ouellet.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The Kentucky House leadership has retained the law firm of Middleton Reutlinger in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal that prompted the resignation of the Kentucky House Speaker.

Former Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover stepped down from his speaker position on Sunday, but he has not resigned from his House seat. Hoover admitted exchanging inappropriate text messages with a female staff member, but has denied the sexual harassment allegations. The woman who made the claim has since resigned.

Republican leadership has promised a complete and thorough investigation of the sexual harassment claims.

On Tuesday, Kentucky House Speaker Pro Tempore David Osborne announced that the law firm of Middleton Reutlinger had been retained, and that the first phase of the investigation had begun.

“We intend to operate the Speaker’s office by the book,” Osborne said in a written statement. “Lest there be any doubt, we are not personally involved in the investigation and have hired one of the best law firms in Kentucky to conduct the initial phase of this independent inquiry.”

In a memo to staff in the Speaker’s office made public by Osborne, Osborne urged staff members to be forthcoming with any information the law firm request, pledging that there would be “no retaliation” against any staff members who provided information.

“As part of this investigation, several of you may be contacted and requested to provide any information you may have concerning the recent events and the work environment in our offices,” Osborne wrote in the memo. “We ask and encourage you to provide appropriate information to the Middleton Reutlinger lawyers. There will, of course, be no retaliation against any person for providing this information to the lawyers.”

But state Democratic lawmakers question the ability of such an investigation to remain independent. In a letter to Osborne, House Democratic leadership called on Osborne to consult the entire Legislative Research Commission to determine the best course of action for a fully independent investigation.

“House Majority Leadership’s selection of a person or entity to perform an investigation of harassment claims against its own caucus members cannot, by definition, be independent,” the letter stated. “We would caution you not to pursue this course.”

“Please reconsider your intended course and instead opt to convene a meeting of the full Commission to determine the most appropriate means of achieving the end we all know is necessary,” the letter continued. “We would urge you to act expeditiously by informing us of your decision on this request by no later than 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 8th.”

For his part, Osborne wrote that he wants to continue the business of the legislature. In his written statement, Osborne added that he has met with Senate President Robert Stivers about crafting a pension reform bill that can pass the General Assembly, even as the sexual harassment investigation is ongoing.

“We cannot allow this mess to distract us from our duty to protect the citizens of Kentucky from the financial catastrophe that awaits should the General Assembly fail to act on the pension situation,” he wrote.

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