The Times - UK (2022-05-24)

the times | Tuesday May 24 2022 41

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Business briefing

High Court ‘torture’ case

exercise or access to his family, who

were refused information about his

whereabouts. He alleges that the City

lawyer “delighted” in his suffering and

that when he was brought to a court

hearing shackled and handcuffed,

Gerrard laughed and quipped: “This is

how they do things here.”

Al-Sadeq says in court papers that

Gerrard oversaw the inhumane condi-

tions as the Ras Al Khaimah authorities

had effectively delegated control of the

case to the Dechert lawyer. “Things will

be prolonged for more years,” Gerrard

is alleged to have said to the prisoner.

Gerrard — who left Dechert in 2020

— is also alleged to have made explicit

threats to have al-Sadeq’s wife arrested

if he was seen to refuse to co-operate

with the fraud investigation. And the

Briton is said to have forced false con-

fessions from the prisoner, allegedly

saying on one occasion: “We don’t have

time for this. We have just come all the

way from London, we are tired, we don’t

want these games of yours, just sign the

f***ing document so that we can finish

our business and go back.”

Quzmar, who was a senior lawyer to

Ras Al Khaimah’s ruler, claims sepa-

rately that under Gerrard’s instructions

he was masked and hooded, his feet

were shackled during interrogations

and that his hands were cuffed when

outside his cell. He alleges Gerrard told

him that he would be imprisoned “in-

definitely” if he did not co-operate with

the investigation and that there would

be “severe implications” for his family.

Bambos Tsiattalou, a partner at

Stokoe Partnership Solicitors, the law

firm representing the prisoners, claims

that at a meeting with technical

operatives at the RAC Club in London,

Gerrard ordered the hacking of the

systems of their advisers.

Tsiattalou pointed to Dechert’s state-

ment after last week’s ENRC ruling,

saying that the law firm “belatedly

accept in that case that Gerrard’s con-

duct was against their values and ethos.

I trust that Dechert will not need to go

through the pain and expense of

further court hearings and cross-exam-

ination in our case.”

Stokoe has also lodged a complaint

against Dechert and Gerrard with the

Solicitors Regulation Authority. Offi-

cials at the watchdog say that they are

awaiting rulings in the High Court

before proceeding, although the litiga-

tion is not likely to be resolved until

next year at the earliest.

Dechert and Gerrard declined to

comment on the allegations but in the

past have denied any wrongdoing. A

spokesman for the Ras Al Khaimah

government declined to comment.

Behind the story

E

NRC’s victory in

the High Court

— in which the

Serious Fraud

Office was found

to have “breached its own

duties” — could not have

come at a worse time for

the agency (Jonathan

Ames writes).

The mining company

hopes to claim up to

£70 million in damages

from the SFO, but it is not

the size of the potential

payout that is most

worrying for the

investigators and Lisa

Osofsky, their leader. SFO

officials are anxiously

awaiting an independent

report into high-profile

cases that collapsed after

the prosecution failed to

disclose evidence to the

defence.

Suella Braverman QC,

the attorney-general,

ordered the inquiry in

March after appeal judges

quashed bribery

convictions in the Unaoil

fraud case. She appointed

Sir David Calvert-Smith, a

former director of public

prosecutions and retired

High Court judge, to lead

the inquiry. He will not be

able to include the ENRC

ruling in his findings, but

Braverman doubtless will

note it as she considers his

report.

Experts are already

forming their own views.

Robert Weekes, a partner

at the City office of the US

firm Crowell & Moring,

says the ENRC judgment

“will make for very

uncomfortable reading”

for the senior leadership.

Even before that

judgment, speculation

among white-collar crime

specialists was rife that

Osofsky, 60, would not

remain in her post after

her first term ends next

year. The view now is that

she may not last even that

long.

Online facial

images were

‘harvested’

Jonathan Ames

Britain’s data watchdog has fined a New

York-based artificial intelligence busi-

ness £7.5 million after it wrongly har-

vested 20 billion online images of faces.

Clearview AI — which was launched

in 2017 and last year was described by

Time magazine as one of the 100 most

influential companies in the world —

was found to have collected data from

publicly available websites and social

media platforms.

The Information Commissioner’s

Office (ICO) in London joined counter-

parts in Australia to investigate the

company over breaches of data and pri-

vacy legislation in both countries. In

addition to the fine, the British author-

ities have ordered the company to stop

obtaining and using publicly available

online personal data of UK residents.

Clearview must also delete the data of

UK residents from its systems.

Investigators in Britain and Australia

found that Clearview had collected 20

billion images of people’s faces and data

to create an online database and that

the business had failed to inform those

whose images had been stored.

Clearview, which last year was said to

be valued at about £103.5 million, pro-

vides services to various customers,

including police forces, which allows

them to upload an image of a person to

an app, which is then checked for a

match against images in the database.

Officials at the watchdog said Clear-

view had been fined for a range of legal

breaches, including a failure to use the

information gathered in a way that was

“fair and transparent”. The company al-

so was found to have failed to provide a

lawful reason for harvesting the data.

Jenner and Block, the law firm repre-

senting Clearview, said: “We stand by

our position that the decision to impose

any fine is incorrect as a matter of law.

Clearview AI is not subject to the ICO’s

jurisdiction, and Clearview AI does no

business in the UK at this time.”

Meggitt, which is

expected to be taken

over by Parker-

Hannifin, makes

parts for the

Eurofighter Typhoon

and Boeing, the big civil aviation

manufacturers, business jet makers

and aircraft engine companies such

as Rolls-Royce, as well as

componentry to the Eurofighter

Typhoon, a mainstay of the RAF,

and the F-35 jets to be housed on

the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers.

The European Commission

looking after the interests of the

likes of Airbus and Dassault also

has had an interest in the deal and

has demanded that if it were to go

ahead, Parker-Hannifin would have

to sell its own existing Ohio-based

aircraft wheel and brake division, a

business segment in which Meggitt

is a serious player, to preserve

competition. Yesterday Parker-

Hannifin said it hds done so with

the sale of the unit to Kaman

Corporation, another engineer, for

an undisclosed sum.

Parker-Hannifin said it expected

its takeover of Meggitt to be

completed by September at the

latest. The takeover is worth 800p a

share to Meggitt shareholders.

Meggitt shares ticked up 4½p, or

0.6 per cent, to 777½p last night.

DANNY LAWSON/PA