The senior lawyer at human rights firm Leigh Day has told the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal that he did not inflate the cost of claims against the British government knowing he was paying a percentage to a fixer.
Martyn Day said there was an agreement to pay a middleman named as Mazin Younis 27.5% of the recovered costs for his role in bringing in claims by Iraqi civilians alleging that British personnel carried out atrocities following the battle of Danny Boy in 2004.
Day’s firm Leigh Day paid Younis and law firm Public Interest Lawyers £1.6m each for their role in securing cases, a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard.
The tribunal also heard that Leigh Day had arranged a different funding deal with a victims’ representative in the Trafigura pollution cases in Ivory Coast, which were happening at roughly the same as the Iraqi claims. In those instances, the middleman was paid 3% of any damages secured for each client they brought in.
Timothy Dutton QC, for the Solicitors Regulation Authority, suggested the Iraq claims arrangement resulted in Leigh Day being able to ‘ignore the clients’ interests altogether’ and not worry about their costs. He suggested that a solicitor with this sort of arrangement ‘might be tempted to inflate his costs’.
Day said that suggestion was ‘nonsense’ and told the tribunal the Ministry of Defence, the defendant in the claims, would seek to ‘get away with paying as little as possible’.
Day rejected the idea there was anything wrong with his firm seeking to make a profit from running these claims, and said it worked on a structured system of hourly rates. Defendants often challenged costs in cases run by the firm, he said.
Day was again questioned about the press conference in 2008 in which he joined Public Interest Lawyers director Phil Shiner in making allegations that British soldiers had tortured and killed detainees.
Dutton said the nature of Day’s words at the conference showed he was endorsing the claims, not simply recounting them, adding that a solicitor’s duty is to ‘tell the truth, make sure they are supporting their clients’ case and upholding their duties to the public’.
Day responded: ‘In this particular instance I felt the evidence we had seen… was so strong. I agree it was unusual but in these unusual circumstances it was appropriate.’
Day was pressed on emails between Shiner, himself and Leigh Day solicitor Sapna Malik in which it was alleged he did not bring up that Leigh Day held documents that might have been important to Public Interest Lawyers' inquiries.
The senior partner said he billed for 2,600 hours in 2007/08 and was not able to pore over Shiner’s professional obligations as well as his own.
Day denies inflating Iraq claims costs to pay fixer
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