Olswang has been mauled by a Parliamentary Committee and forced to reveal how much it charged for advising on the disastrous BHS acquisition.

The firm advised Dominic Chappell who bought BHS for £1 from Philip Green, siphoned off the remaining cash in the business and left it with a £571m pension deficit. It went into administration in April and 11,000 jobs are at risk.

Parliament is less than delighted about this, and Olswang was grilled last week as to why it thought that Chappell, who has twice been declared bankrupt, was a proper person to acquire the business. Under questioning by Frank Field MP, Olswang's General Counsel, Stephen Hermer, said that "there was clearly a question mark over Mr Chappell's business acumen raised by the bankruptcy history, and in the context of a rescue bid for a large retail chain there was a judgment call that needed to be made on how much weight to put on that background".

Field wasn't satisfied. On Tuesday this week he wrote to Hermer with a number of further questions, including what Olswang had billed Chappell. He also pointed out that Chappell had put £35m into an account at the firm, and asked what steps Olswang had taken to trace from where this money had originated. Hermer has until Monday to respond.

    Hermer last week. How he might have looked.

No doubt Olswang did its usual money laundering checks and is within the letter of the law. The SRA - which is watching this debacle like a hawk - is unlikely to be able to do anything. But it's a PR disaster for the firm, which has form for acting on slightly doubtful matters. It was roundly criticised for trying to drum up a privacy case against Google, and it advised News International over the phone hacking scandal when no one else would touch it with a ten foot pole. Presumably it would represent the Devil himself as long as he passed a conflict check and was happy to be rinsed for £50,000 a month.

A spokeswoman for the firm said "Olswang does not (and due to our professional obligations and regulatory requirements are unable to) comment on any clients' affairs".
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Comments

Anonymous 07 June 16 16:16

Surely it's the role of the CF advisors/accountants to advise on the financial DD/liquidity of the transaction? I don't see why that's Olswang's issue. Also, fees are driven by the available market, advise is worth how much someone is willing to pay for it. Seems like MPs need someone to point a finger at, and Olswang is making an easy target.

Anonymous 08 June 16 17:34

"The SRA - which is watching this debacle like a hawk - is unlikely to be able to do anything." Please add the words "except for 5 - 10 yrs later, after others have taken on the burden of investigation of wrongdoing and pronounced"