Law firm thrown off UK oligarch case

White & Case, the US-headquartered law firm, has been thrown off a high-profile brief representing Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian oligarch, after a UK court found that it had a conflict of interest.

White & Case was advising Mr Pinchuk, Ukraine’s second-richest man whose contacts include Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, in the latest big-ticket litigation between oligarchs to hit London. Mr Pinchuk is suing Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, two fellow Ukrainian tycoons, for breach of contract and trust in a case whose stakes could be as high as $2bn. A trial is expected later this year.

In a twist to the already embittered dispute – which includes parallel $2bn arbitration proceedings – Mr Justice Field on Friday ordered that White & Case be barred from representing Mr Pinchuk in the proceedings.

His judgment, written after private hearings, details that the firm advised Mr Pinchuk in preparing a claim against Mr Kolomoisky and Mr Bogolyubov as early as 2010. The partner in charge of the file, London-based David Goldberg, erroneously told a New York colleague in 2011 that the claim had settled when companies ultimately belonging to Mr Kolomoisky and Mr Bogolyubov approached the firm about working on a restructuring and a potential initial public offering in the United States.

The firm subsequently earned $900,000 from advising on the restructuring. The firm then decided that it would not be a conflict of interest to also represent Mr Pinchuk when in 2012 a London team started preparing the current lawsuit against Mr Kolomoisky and Mr Bogolyubov.

White & Case said that it was considering whether it could improve its conflict-checking policies.

“While we are disappointed by the judgment, the judge did not find that any actual breach of client confidentiality had occurred,” a spokesman said.

Mr Pinchuk’s spokesman declined to comment. Mr Pinchuk’s barrister, Dinah Rose QC, had told the court that he would incur great cost if White & Case were injuncted from acting, and that it would be difficult for him to find new representation at a firm with similar skills.