Managing Partner at the Law Firm "YUST" on the Ivlev incident: “When there is nothing left to say, conscience is remembered”

The story of the leak of information on dubious sources of the income of Igor Shuvalov, the First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, which appears to have been organized by advocate Pavel Ivlev, has disturbed the Russian advocate community. Yury Pilipenko, Vice President of the Federal Chamber of Advocates of Russia, Managing Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", explained to “Pravo.Ru” the weakness of all three arguments by Ivlev of absence in his conduct of violations of the professional ethics code, and indicated contradictions in his colleague’s words.

Last week, Pavel Ivlev, accused by the former employer – ALM Feldmans Legal Bureau – of violations of advocacy activity legislation, attempted to redeem himself and published an open letter in Forbes. In the letter, he tried to persuade everyone that no violation of attorney-client privilege had occurred. He gave three arguments for this point of view. First: neither Igor Shuvalov, nor Olga Shuvalova had executed agreements with him or ALM Feldmans. Second: according to the Advocate’s Code of Professional Ethics, law and morality in the advocacy is above the client’s will, and no directions leading to disrespect towards the law may be executed by the advocate. Third, Ivlev reminded that the same document allowed advocates to use, without the client’s consent, the information communicated to them in such measure as was reasonably necessary for the client’s defense in the disciplinary proceedings or criminal case initiated against him.

Today Yury Pilipenko, the FCA Vice President, Managing Partner of the Firm, expressed his ideas regarding the letter. He does not agree with any of the arguments and considers that the “excuses are not serious” and “simply inconsistent”.

First of all, Y.Pilipenko reminds that the absence of an agreement executed between Ivlev, ALM Feldmans and the Shuvalovs, which the defender alleges, “does not exempt him from the necessity to keep the attorney-client privilege”. The FPA Vice President points that “the agreement regulates payment issues, describes the services, time limits etc.”, and the regime of attorney-client privilege “appears on the moment of the client’s coming to the attorney and persists indefinitely, even if no agreement at all has been made”.

Neither is Y.Pilipenko convinced by the argument of the primacy of the law and morality over the client’s wishes. He says: “Actual rendering of one type of services for several years strips the attorney of the reasonable possibility to allege circumstances related to [this] primacy. If he considers such services immoral, he should refuse rendering them immediately. And if an attorney delivers the document copies to the media after five or seven years, it does not look at all like fighting for law and morality”. He also adds: “When there is nothing to say to the point, one instantly brings up the subject of conscience”.

The Vice-President of the FPA believes that the “self-defense” argument by Ivlev is no less weak. Y.Pilipenko is of the opinion that “the very base for such “self-defense” is non-existent”. Self-defense is actually stipulated by the Code, but “nothing is known of whether the implied clients, the Shuvalovs, pursue the advocate by criminal, disciplinary or other legal actions”.

As far as the entire situation is concerned, Y.Pilipenko considers the disclosure of the client’s information to the media, if done by the advocate, “a specially grievous deed, worthy of the most strict attitude from the self-governing advocates’ bodies”.

We remind that last week a scandalous information was published in The Wall Stree Journal and Financial Times that I.Shuvalov and his family during the last 12 years had earned tens of millions of dollars by investing in Gazprom shares, the profitability of those investments being impossible without the use of insider information. After that, Artem Dymskoy, managing partner of ALM Feldmans, assumed that the former partner of the bureau Pavel Ivlev could be responsible and blamed him for violation of the law.

Dymskoy wrote in his declaration available on the website of the “Ekho Moskvy” radio station: “Disclosing such documents, protected by attorney-client privilege, is an outrageous violation of legislation on advocacy, [since] Ivlev rendered legal assistance to the Shuvalov family”. He also declared his intention to request the Chamber of Advocates of the city of Moscow to strip Ivlev of his status.

Ivlev responded by an open letter, where he did not acknowledge nor deny his involvement in the disclosure and declared that no attorney-client privilege had been violated.

In its turn, the Chamber of Advocates of the city of Moscow regarded the intention of ALM Feldmans to file such a request with skepticism. The Chamber declared that it would not consider the request, since only the client or the client’s representative may complain that the defender has violated the attorney-client privilege. The Chamber pointed out: “Otherwise it turns out that the client is satisfied, and the legal bureau expresses its discontent”.

Full version of the publication is available here.