Rotten clients ... Pulp mill ... Brown stuff ... Fresh rallying call for NSW to appoint QCs
News Corp tells media: print and we'll sueSOME lawyers have rotten luck with their clients. Poor Ian Philip, general counsel at News Corp, comes to mind.
The various Daily Ruperts issued by the Holt Street collective and its satrapies have been guardians of the free speech campaign Australia's Right to Know. It should have been called Australia's Right to Know What We Tell You.
As it is, Philip was called upon on Thursday (August 21) to issue menacing missives to general counsel at rival print and broadcast outfits, Fairfax, the ABC, SBS, Ten, Nine, Seven, etc - that they must not publish any information from leaked internal material showing that Rupert's tissues and rags are in diabolical circulation and financial strife.
Ian may not have noticed that everyone had already published the information.
"The disclosure of this document is entirely unauthorised ... News will take appropriate action against any entity or individual who published the weekly operating statement and/or its contents, including by referring to or summarising its contents."
This is news - a media outfit suggesting that scoops have to be "authorised".
Crikey.com.au has been persuaded by Ian to "pulp" the Blue Book documents from its online collection, although stories about the documents are still plentiful on the internet - which rather seems to circumvent the initial plan of stopping "summaries".
Someone called "Lilly Smith" has taken Australia's Right to Know seriously and dumped the secret documents on Scribd - for all the world to enjoy.
ABC radio also told its listeners that for News to threaten legal action over publication of a scoop is "extremely hypocritical".
The publication by Rupe's organs of a secret document that itemised the salaries paid to top level celebrities, announcers and presenters at the ABC, apparently was not regarded by News' reptiles as a breach of privacy or commercial confidentiality.
It's arguable that a lot of the information in the Blue Books should in any event be released to the market. The secrecy about the true state of play at the News Corp print business has resulted in an artificial view of its prospects.
Philip is familiar with the art of document destruction. In June 2007 he came in for a frightful birching at the hands of Justice Ronnie Sackville in the C7 case.
He had deleted legally sensitive emails and misled Telstra, News' partner in Foxtel, in order to reduce the company's contribution for the NRL rights.
Ronnie said Philip's conduct was, "disgraceful ... [and he had] a propensity to encourage the deletion or destruction of records that might be relevant to potential legal proceedings".
In evidence in an unrelated case in Delaware, Philip told the court that had trouble sleeping at night after lying to Telstra about the pay TV rights.
Stuart Grant, the New York lawyer acting for the applicants against News in that case, asked him:
"Did anyone at News Corp whatsoever raise any issue with regard to the ethics of you lying to people in negotiations or destroying documents?"
Philip: "Not that I recall."
Naturally, this ethical lapse didn't cause any problem for the Legal Services Commissioner.
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Catholic church: smoke tricks
IF Ian has trouble with sleeping what about the nabobs at Gilbert + Tobin whose job it is to keep the royal commission into child sexual abuse shrouded in incense on behalf of its morally bankrupt client, the Roman Catholic Church.
Partners Kate Harrison, Steven Glass and Danny Gilbert himself are on the roster.
We can only hope and pray they're trousering a packet to assist George (Trucking Company) Pell through his gripping evidence.
The firm has done great work for asylum seekers and refugees, Aboriginal rights and welfare and prompting bail and criminal justice reform. All it takes is to f*** one goat, etc.
In this case the goat is Pell and his special brand of church healing, compensation and cover-up.
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Pulper at work on Obeid book
WE mentioned the "pulp" word a moment ago and here it is again: Random House has been advised by its lawyers to pulp the current version of He Who Must be Obeid by Kate McClymont and Linton Besser.
Tourism spruiker Chris Brown popped out of the woodwork to say he wasn't the Chris Brown referred to in the book in this way:
"The Obeid and Brown offspring had set up Strand International Travel, which swiftly went belly up, owing $91,345. At that point, Chris Brown was a spokesman for the lobby group the Tourism Task Force, of which his dad was chairman. Bankruptcy would have been a bad look."
The distressed Brown said:
"The great investigative journalists who wrote the book didn't bother to take the four minutes to check the ASIC website."
This should not take away from the fact that the book is, nonetheless, a greater piece of investigatory work.
In The Daily Telegraph's report of the regrettable mistake a reader has posted this puzzling comment:
"ICAC should have a look at this Chris Brown anyway."
Ground breaking exposés these days tend to be published without indexes, because anxious readers go straight to the back to check what has been written about them.
Without an index they are less inclined to plough through the book to discover each and every item of dirt that has been dished.
Needless to say, Mark O'Brien is on the case for Brownie. O'Brien recently moved from partner to consultant at Johnson Winter & Slattery.
He acted for Obeid and against McClymont in the notorious 2006 Oasis defamation case; he acted for her when he did the legals for Fairfax; and now he's back in his natural posture acting against her.
In-house Fairfax lawyer Richard Coleman was on the money when he remarked, after reading the proofs of the gripping tome: "Buy the book now, because by lunchtime it will be pulped."
Barrister Richard Potter, who advised Random House, said dodging the book's legal pitfalls was like, "driving a truck of explosives between Baghdad and Basra".
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Burbidge with vice-regal pals
RICK Burbidge's ginger group at the NSW bar 'n' grill is holding a meeting on Monday (August 25) at the Phillip Street Leagues Club to rally support to overthrow the bar council's refusal to endorse the return of Queen's Counsel.
Any change to the current system of SC appointments would require amendment of s.90 of the Legal Profession Act.
Maybe we can save people time and bother by reporting that when Justinian today (Friday, Aug. 22) asked attorney general Brad Hazzard his thoughts on the matter he said, for the record:
"My instinctive response is that debate has been had. It's over. Let's move forward."
We hope that helps.