London’s professional services firms shouldn’t just cut ties - they should talk about what went wrong
(Picture: Matt Writtle)A ring-round of London’s top law firms and consultants to ask about Russian clients yields some form of this answer: we are horrified by the war and worried about our people in the region. We’re reviewing our work with Russian clients and dropping at least a few.
What is lacking is any word on who. Lawyer-client privilege and non-disclosure clauses likely play a part. But you get a distinct sense City firms don’t want to talk about who exactly they were working with in the region.
Why? Embarrassment or shame? There’s surely some of that.
Let’s hope, however, it is not simply discretion — a signal to future clients that even if things go south you can trust us to keep things private.
Professional services firms need to learn lessons from this crisis, not simply clean up the fallout.
In recent years the City has developed “features of transnational kleptocracy, where British professional service providers enable post-Soviet elites to launder their money and reputations,” as a Chatham House report put it in December.
The wealth may be Russian but the circumstances are not. Corruption is an unfortunately persistent feature of society. Questionable cash will always be sloshing around the world looking for a home. Unless we get some soul-searching in the City, the chances are it will wash up on our shores just as quickly as Russian money disappears.
As ever, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Fessing up and admitting you got it wrong would help improving standards in future.
Who will be the first?
