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A partner at global law firm DWF was wined and dined by private investigators posing as prospective clients in an elaborate sting designed to extract confidential information about a high-stakes commercial dispute worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Private investigators posing as prospective clients plied a DWF partner with alcohol during a lengthy lunch and dinner in an elaborate bid to extract confidential information.
Proceedings before the Court of Appeal (England and Wales) revealed that the operation formed part of a covert intelligence campaign orchestrated by private investigations firm Black Cube, which is staffed by former Israeli intelligence officers.
The target of the operation was an unnamed partner at global law firm DWF, who was representing the defendants in a legal dispute involving shares worth more than £300 million (equivalent to $570 million).
Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego and one of his companies engaged Black Cube to target the DWF partner, with a letter before the court stating the firm had been retained to “gather information about the defendants and relevant individuals associated with them”.
Court documents revealed that Black Cube would deploy a sophisticated range of intelligence-gathering tactics, including creating “elaborate, personalised cover stories”, establishing false digital and physical identities, using social engineering techniques, and cultivating personal and professional relationships to extract information.
As part of the operation, a Black Cube operative using the alias “Mr Ortelli” posed as the representative of an Italian oil company seeking legal representation for a genuine, publicly known arbitration against the UAE government.
The operation began in October 2024, when the DWF partner participated in a roughly hour-long Zoom meeting with “Mr Ortelli”.
Following the initial meeting, the partner was flown to Amsterdam on an all-expenses-paid trip, where he met “Mr Ortelli” for lunch and dinner, with court records indicating he consumed significant amounts of alcohol despite “not usually” drinking.
During the conversation, the court heard that “Mr Ortelli” asked a series of probing questions designed to elicit information about the litigation, including: “What tactics, sorry, are you using to make the other party fade out?” and “What would be the main flaws and challenges that you have in your case?”
The three meetings, spanning more than six and a half hours in total, were each secretly recorded as part of the operation.
The Court of Appeal described the operation as a “deliberate and sophisticated scheme” designed to obtain “confidential and privileged information” by “steering the conversation” in a way that would induce the partner to disclose details about the case.
Documents presented to the court revealed the substantial financial incentives attached to Black Cube’s engagement.
The firm was retained for more than £1 million, with additional payments including a £220,000 bonus for securing a witness statement, a further £250,000 if its intelligence prompted a criminal investigation into the defendants, and a success fee equal to 4 per cent of any amount ultimately recovered by the claimants.
The court found that this financial arrangement gave Black Cube “a powerful incentive” to adopt “unethical methods”, which the claimants must have understood when engaging the firm.
One of the presiding judges, Lord Justice Males, ruled that the operation amounted to “an abuse of the process of the court”, adding that “some things are so obvious that they do not need much analysis.
The ruling described the consequences of the covert operation as “dramatic”, warning that the scheme had left the DWF partner facing potential Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) disciplinary proceedings and the prospect of “professional ruin”.
The fallout also extended to the defendants’ legal representation, with DWF replaced by another firm – a change the court said was “no doubt as a result of the breakdown in trust and confidence caused by X’s revelations”.
In its final ruling, the Court of Appeal held that the case should proceed to trial.
