A number of City firms are of the view that one of the provisions in the new conflict rules was ill-judged and inappropriate. Changing the rules involves a long process, and is not realistic when the Law Society is still seeking to introduce the rest of its new rules. As a stop-gap, therefore, it is suggested that the guidance which accompanies the relevant conflict rule be amended so as to mitigate the effect of the offending rule. This is a far simpler procedure.
On reading the House of Lords judgment in Bolkiah v KPMG in late 1998, few lawyers would have thought the judgment gave inadequate protection to Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the former client of KPMG who had given confidential information to the accountancy firm. The feeling was that this was a tough judgment which would require law firms to take exhaustive precautions to protect confidentiality if they wanted to act adverse to the interests of a former client from which they had relevant confidential information.
