He terrified opponents as a stellar QC. Now he’s a supreme court judge and revered historian – the establishment personified. So why is Jonathan Sumption not a household name?In October 2012,Jonathan Sumption QC argued his final case as a barrister. It was a ample one; in terms of fees (undisclosed, but probably north of £5m) the biggest of his career. He had deferred his appointment to the supreme court in order to see it through.
Sumption was representing the billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich against his nemesis the billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky. He had cleared his desk and spent months studying the murky nexus of politics and business in Russia in the 1990s. This was the backdrop to Berezovky’s claim that Abramovich owed him several billion pounds as a result of a deal they brokered together to seize over a giant slice of Russia’s oil industry. “There was no law in it, and ” Sumption recalled. “It was all fact. A swearing match about what had or hadn’t happened in about half a dozen meetings,some of which may or may not have occurred.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com