A lawyer acting for Nadhim Zahawi during investigations into the former chancellor’s tax affairs has been ordered to pay £310,000 after a campaigner complained of an attempt to silence him over the controversy.
Ashley Hurst, from the legal firm Osborne Clarke, was alleged to have improperly tried to restrict Dan Neidle, campaigner and founder of the thinktank Tax Policy Associates, from discussing an email from Hurst, in which he offered Neidle an “opportunity” to retract an allegation against Zahawi and implicitly threatened a defamation claim. Hurst warned that Neidle was “not entitled” to publish or refer to the communication, except to seek legal advice.
On Friday the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) ruled that Hurst had breached the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) code of conduct in respect of the July 2022 email. Hurst was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay costs of £260,000. A second allegation relating to a letter sent in the same month was found not proved, the tribunal ruled.
Writing on X, Neidle said: “The idea that a lawyer can send a libel threat to someone, and require them never to tell anyone about it, is both dangerous and absurd. The SDT reached the right decision.”
Zahawi faced controversy in July 2022 over his tax affairs after he was appointed chancellor by Boris Johnson. He faced questions over avoiding tax by using an offshore company to hold shares in YouGov, the polling company he founded.
In January 2023 it was reported Zahawi had agreed to pay a seven-figure settlement over his tax affairs, including a tax penalty. Zahawi was sacked the same month as Conservative party chair by Rishi Sunak for failing to declare an HMRC investigation into his tax affairs.
Giving evidence to the disciplinary panel last Monday, Neidle said he took Hurst’s email to mean he could not publish the fact that he received a message from the then-chancellor’s lawyers ordering him to retract a claim and that “there would be serious consequences if I did”. Neidle had accused Zahawi of lying.
In his witness statement, Neidle said the email had been headed “confidential” and “without prejudice”. He said: “The more I read the email, the more I felt that this was a deliberate action to use those labels to silence me.”
Neidle eventually published both the email and the letter from Hurst, despite the warnings. He said the publication of the communications had brought a “great deal” of attention to Zahawi’s tax affairs.
Hurst said in his evidence that neither the email nor the letter was intended to be “aggressive or intimidating”. He did not consider he had breached his regulatory obligations, which he took “extremely seriously”.
A spokesperson for Osborne Clarke said: “We are extremely surprised and disappointed with this outcome in light of the legal position and evidence heard at the tribunal. We will await the detailed reasons of the tribunal before commenting further.”
