Weil, Gotshal & Manges has paid over £3 million to a client after being accused of ruining its bid to control a Slovakian ice cream company thanks to a partner's sloppy translation skills.

Private equity house Bancroft instructed Weil to buy a majority stake in Frost, Slovakia's largest popsicle, ice cream and frozen food producer. On completion of the £6.6 million purchase, Bancroft discovered that despite owning 94% of the company it had no voting rights. Whoops. Bancroft's suit alleges that Weil partner Ken Schiff, who has since left the firm, was responsible for the error because he bungled the translation of the contract and didn't properly explain the foreign law documents.


  Once he got going, translating Slovakian turned out to be easy

With no control over what tunes its ice cream vans were playing or broader lollypop strategy, Bancroft brought a £10 million negligence claim against Weil. The case was due to be heard in August, but the US firm decided not to subject itself to vocab tests in open court and settled for a sum understood by Legal Business to be between three and five million.

Weil failed to respond in English or mangled Slovakian to a request for comment.
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Comments

Anonymous 05 September 14 09:16

It's not unusual to discover that the designer handbag you paid top dollar for is lacking in terms of quality. You pay for the name.

Anonymous 06 September 14 17:04

It goes the other way too. Recently heard on Slovak TV translating Friends. "Indian Casino" translated with the meaning of "Casino run by people from India." An older but much treasured one is "Vietnam vet" translated as "Vietnamese Veterinarian"