I am sorry to have to write to you again but since
I have had no reply to my letter of 1 October I am writing to
you to request your outstanding replies. As I explained in that
letter I need to inform the Standards and Privileges Committee
on 23 October of my progress with this inquiry. Some of the matters
on which I need your assistance are outstanding from my letter
to you of 14 May and our meeting on 4 July so I do need to stress
the urgency of this matter.
1. From our meeting
on 4 July 2001
You felt that, as you were
bound by your duty of confidentiality to your clients, you could
not confirm or correct the information I put to you about work
you had undertaken in your legal practice for the Hinduja brothers,
their family or others related to the Hinduja foundation or business.
I asked you to seek the permission of any relevant clients to
allow you to answer my question. You asked me to write to you
with this request and I did so on 10 July 2001 when I said: "So
that I have a complete picture of all your transactions with the
Hinduja brothers, the Hinduja businesses and Foundation I would
be grateful if you would approach any client who is connected
in any way with the Hinduja brothers, businesses or Foundation
to seek their agreement to disclose to me a list of the activities
carried out for them with dates and the payment received for each
piece of work."
On 6 August you wrote to me to say you were taking
advice on my request concerning the clients of your law firm and
would respond as soon as you had done this. You have not done
so.
In that letter I also itemised the information which
you had offered to try to obtain for me as follows some of which
Mr Pathan has provided (see paragraph 3) —
" Mapesbury Communications
1. The dates which relate to the history of
the company and show the activities it was engaged in throughout
its life.
2. A list of all the events which Mapesbury
Communications organised with dates.
3. Details of the work which the company carried
out for the Asian Business Network and the events organised for
the Network.
4. The payments made by the company to Wildberry
printers with dates.
5. The dates during which Mr Pathan was a
director of Mapesbury Communications.
6. The amounts paid in salaries and fees to
directors and employees for each year.
7. The rent paid each year to Acacia Holdings
in respect of Savant House or any other property occupied at any
time by Mapesbury Communications.
In addition, the answers to the questions set
out in my letter of 14 May 2001 which are outstanding are as follows:
8. The period covered by the list which you
provided to The Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee
with your letter of 10th May headed "List of clients, events
and payments in and out in the knowledge of the directors of the
company".
9. As you have confirmed that the list "should
not be considered conclusive", would you kindly inform me
of the total amount in round numbers covered by the entries on
the list, with dates, and the total income received by the company
in each of the years covered by the list?"
On 4 September you returned the transcript of our
meeting and informed me in your letter that your brother in law
had not been a director of Wildberry.
2. Additional questions in letter of 10 September
2001
On 10 September 2001 I wrote
to you to ask you the following further questions:
In response to the point you had made about proceedings
you were taking I said;
"As I said when we met I do not wish to jeopardise
the proceedings you are undertaking in any way. As I do not know
anything of those proceedings other than hearing from you that
they are in progress I would be grateful if you would let me know
which matters covered in the transcript might be subject to those
proceedings. Please would inform me when the proceedings are complete."
You have provided no response on this matter.
I went on to ask you at 3. to explain the discrepancy
between the information I had received about representations made
by you on behalf of Mrs Matin and the information you gave me
on 4 July. You have provided no response on this mater.
I also asked you to expand and clarify your answers
about the winding up of Mapesbury as I understood that a stay
had been put on the process. You have provided no response on
this matter.
I also invited you to correct the information you
had provided on these two matters on 4 July if you felt that was
necessary.
3. Provision of information by Mr Pathan
Mr Pathan, on your behalf,
has provided some information on the outstanding matters concerning
Mapesbury in his letters of 30 August, 14 September, 27 September
and 5 October 2001 but some answers remain outstanding or are
incomplete:
He said in his letter of 30 August that he was a
director of Mapesbury from 1 April 1999-31 January 2001 which
answered question 5 from my letter of 10 July.
I wrote again to Mr Pathan on 13 September setting
out the questions which remained unanswered. Mr Pathan provided
the rent figure for the premises in Camden in his letter of 14
September.
I wrote again to Mr Pathan on 25 September spelling
out again the information which remained outstanding.
Mr Pathan replied on 27 September saying he was preparing
the estimate of the total amount and the period covered by the
list provided to the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges
Committee on 10 May. I wrote to Mr Pathan on 8 October to try
to conclude these matters.
On 10 October I received a letter from Mr Pathan
dated 4 October 2001 in which he repeated earlier replies.
4. Answers which remain outstanding
As of today the following
answers remain outstanding or incomplete. From my letter of 10
July the request concerning your clients' permission to disclose
information to me and questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 and those
from my letter of 10 September, which I have set out above for
convenience.
I would be grateful if you would let me have your
response on all these matters as soon as possible as I find it
difficult to understand why a period of three months is insufficient
to obtain any of this information or the necessary authorisation
from your clients. In any event please would you let me have your
reply by Friday 19 October at the latest so that I may report
accurately to the Standards and Privileges Committee.
I would of course be happy to discuss these matters
on the telephone if you would prefer that.
