A Gibson Dunn partner faces the prospect of criminal charges after a judge ruled that he deliberately misled the court.

In 2013 Peter Gray convinced the Commercial Court to grant a $100m freezing order in favour of his client, the Djibouti government, against opposition leader Abdourahman Boreh. Gray secured the order from Justice Flaux using transcripts of intercepted calls Boreh made the day after a grenade attack on a Djibouti supermarket in which Boreh was recorded saying "last night the act was completed" and "the people heard it and it had a deep resonance". In Djibouti the same evidence was used to sentence Boreh, who now lives in exile in Belgravia, to 15 years in prison.
 

Flaux J preparing a massive can of whupass yesterday

 
However, last year Boreh's solicitors discovered that the call transcripts had been incorrectly dated and that Boreh's conversations had actually taken place the day before the attack, gutting the case against him. Boreh applied to have the freezing order lifted, and in the subsequent hearing it emerged that 39-year-old Gray had been told the transcripts were incorrectly dated a month before the orginal freezing order was granted. But instead of informing the court, Gray emailed his team, "we can get away with the date error" and allegedly said that he was "going to fudge" it. In an unsavoury development, Gray then used Flaux J's freezing order judgment in various attempts to get Boreh extradited to a Djibouti prison cell.

In his judgment setting aside the freezing order Flaux J has absolutely bollocked Gray. He called the partner's misleading responses to questions "clearly dishonest" and said his justification that he was being "acceptably evasive" was "breathtaking". It was also revealed that Gray's underlings had asked him if they should check the files to work out how Gibson Dunn put the wrong dates in the freezing order application. Gray sent them a panicked email saying it would be "a waste of time. Please do not do that", and asking "Is that something you think it is appropriate to admit to the court? Would you like me to publically apportion blame on other lawyers?" Flaux J called the email "disgraceful" and a "wholly wrong" attempt to smear innocent solicitors.
  
Opening the door to possible criminal charges, the judge concluded that Gray knew when the freezing order was made that it was being granted on a false basis and that Gray "did deliberately mislead the court".

Gibson Dunn has already removed Gray's profile from its website. In a statement provided to RollOnFriday it said, "we are very disappointed that the conduct of our Dubai-based partner, Peter Gray, fell far below the standard which the Court rightly expects of all counsel", and that it had suspended him "pending further inquiry".