WA Supremes on bad lawyer mop-up operation … Fibbing solicitor tossed from the jam roll … Breach of undertaking … Fabrications to the Federal Court … Eleventh hour Damascene conversion … Resigned to his fate … Janek Drevikovsky
Oud, a sole trader, was found guilty of professional misconduct late last year. The WA State Administrative Tribunal fined him $50,000 and recommended he lose his ticket.
Oud’s matter was sent up to the Supreme Court, where Peter Quinlan CJ et al. stood ready to deliver a birching.
Their Honours first rehearsed Oud’s sordid course of conduct, as found by the tribunal.
In 2016, Oud was acting for Irongrow Corporation and its directors. One of the directors, South Australian Colin Oxlade, has been rusticated for four years by ASIC.
In a fine Western Australian tradition, Irongrow was besotted by things plucked from the earth. It bought platinum bars on credit, for reasons undisclosed in the judgments. Irongrow has since gone into liquidation.
In March 2016, Irongrow wanted to borrow $300,000 to buy more platinum. Oud got busy and contacted Credit Solutions Group, a corporate lender.
They agreed to forward $300,000 to Oud’s trust account – on condition that no funds were to be disbursed until CSG gave their express permission.
Oud accepted the funds, and promptly paid them out to an array of Irongrow affiliates. He made the trail deliberately baffling, so it wasn’t immediately obvious where the money had gone.
The tribunal said Oud had recklessly breached an undertaking, dishonestly concealed bad behaviour and improperly attempted to avoid an investigation.
The Supreme Court was specially aghast that Oud had breached an undertaking. Their Honours cited Legal Profession Complaints Committee v Detata, where lawyers were told keeping their promises was a “solemn obligation of the utmost importance”.
Failure to do so was often serious misconduct.
On March 29, 2016, Oud agreed to fire off a letter on Oxlade’s behalf. The letter was addressed to the Federal Court in Adelaide. It claimed that Oud acted for ICBC; that ICBC was willing to help pay off the Warmings’ debts; and to that end, Oud had been instructed by ICBC to release $200,000 to the debtors.
This was all untrue. In fact, the letter had been written earlier by John Warming. Oud copied it without substantial change and slapped his own name on it. This was apparently done at Oxlade’s direction.
All counts of misconduct fell well below the standard expected of a lawyer. Their Hons pointed out the conduct was ongoing and that, in the tribunal proceedings, Oud had tried saving his skin with bizarre explanations.
Oud’s one consolation was that no costs were ordered, because he hadn’t defended the proceedings.