Christopher Grierson

Cheating lawyer in £1m fiddle.

HE WAS hailed as the lawyer who took on the financial establishment and won, forcing the Bank of England to hand over key documents in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

But a decade on and a year after being runner-up in the prestigious Lawyer of the Year ‘beauty’ contest, solicitor Christopher Grierson’s career was in ruins last night after he was sacked from his high-profile job in an expenses scandal.
His dismissal has stunned the legal establishment, who considered Grierson — who acted for the Sultan of Brunei’s wayward brother, Prince Jefri — to be one of the most skilled litigation partners in the City.

Yesterday, it was revealed that he was dismissed following an investigation at his firm, global legal practice Hogan Lovells, into £1million false expenses claims made over four years. It is understood Grierson, 59, has offered to repay the money within 14 days. At the same time, he also faces investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority after Lovells reported the case to the regulator last Friday. No clients have been affected by the false expenses claims.

Partners were told about the fraud and Grierson’s dismissal over the weekend. The firm wifi look at its internal control procedures in light of the affair.

A spokesperson for Hogan Lovells said: ‘An investigator carried out by the firm has revealed that no clients were affected as a result of Christopher’s actions.

‘Christopher acted on his own. He was a long-standing partner in the firm and highly regarded. We are very saddened and concerned by these events, which represent a major breach of trust.’

Grierson, who also advised the Financial Services Authority on the administration of Lehman Brothers, once boasted that he did not have many blank pages in his passport.

Last year, he acted for mathematician Martin Coward in his divorce from his super-rich hedge fund boss wife, Elena Ambrosiadou, which Grierson likened to the Hollywood black comedy The War Of The Roses.

Daily Mail. 18 May 2011.