Page 26 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Charles

Didn’t see Kriya for a couple of days after Loretta’s wedding. She was working from home. Landlord coming to look at her boiler, or something like that.

Hard not to suspect she was avoiding me. Maybe just as well. Lay awake for ages the night after the wedding, staring at the ceiling.

Bad idea to bring Kriya to the wedding. She had that disastrous encounter with her ex. Even more disastrously, for me, there was that kiss.

Not a real kiss. I knew that. But it had been confusing.

Kriya was in such a state then, she would have done anything to escape her ex. Didn’t mean she was attracted to me, or wanted to kiss me.

After a couple of hours of this, I turned on the lamp, thinking I’d go get a glass of water. Realised the patch of shadow on the ceiling I’d been staring at wasn’t shadow, but a damp patch. So I went and emailed the building management company instead.

Relief to be able to get up in the morning and go to the office, tired as I was. Flat felt quiet without Loretta. She’d left with Hayley and her in-laws to fly off to Japan. Would be away for four weeks—in-laws peeling off after the first week so Hayley and Loretta could have a proper honeymoon.

Busy start to the week, getting the DLP settlement over the line. Was waiting around for instructions on Tuesday evening when the phone rang.

Thought it was the client, calling to confirm they had approval from their Board in the US to sign the settlement agreement. Put the call on speaker. It was getting on for ten p.m. anyway: no one in the pods outside to be disturbed.

But it was Shaw Boey’s voice that issued from the phone. First thing he said was:

“Chinky Charlie! How are you, mate?”

Had a brief unpleasant shock, hearing the old nickname. Like being back at school.

Had forgotten people used to call me that. And that was when they were being friendly.

It was a different time. I was glad nobody else was around to hear him. Couldn’t imagine Kriya would be impressed.

CG: “Hi, Shaw. How are you?” Remembered his text, over the weekend. “Sorry I didn’t ring you yesterday. It’s been on the to-do list, I just didn’t manage to get to it.”

Shaw: “That’s all right. You’re a busy man. You good to chat now?”

Glanced at my inbox. There was an update from the client:

CEO’s in a meeting for the next hour. We should have confirmation to proceed shortly.

Suppressed a sigh.

CG: “Yes. I am waiting for a call, though, so I might have to jump off at short notice.”

Shaw: “Fine. I’ll cut to the chase. I don’t know how much you know about it, but I set up an investment firm a few years back, Blackmount Capital. We’ve been doing a lot of work with a chap at your firm, Robert Anderson. Do you know him?”

Didn’t recognise the name, but there are two thousand people in the London office. Looked him up on the intranet. Partner in Corporate, specialising in M&A. Went to our school, though that would have been some years before we were there.

Shaw: “We need help with an issue that’s come up for one of our backers.

Between you and me, Charlie, this guy’s a big deal, very prominent person.

He doesn’t like people to know about his personal affairs, so I do a lot for him, you know, help him out.

He needs a lawyer in the UK, someone who can go to court on his behalf.

Robert said it wouldn’t be him, wanted to refer me on to his Litigation colleagues.

That made me think, hullo, I know who I need—Charlie Goh. You do litigation, yeah?”

CG: “Yes. This would be for an individual? Can you tell me about the case?”

Shaw: “There’s this crank who’s obsessed with my client—the guy I was telling you about, the VVIP.

She’s been posting about him on her blog for years, all kinds of lies and conspiracy theories.

Harassment, really. He’s been ignoring her, trying not to feed the flames, but she keeps escalating.

Now she’s threatening to publish her allegations in the paper.

My client’s a high-profile person, his name is very important to him.

If people start believing this woman, that could be a problem for him. ”

CG, taking notes: “Your client’s looking to bring an action to restrain publication? Against the newspaper, I presume.”

Shaw: “This is a very reputable UK paper. My client doesn’t have any issues with them.

It’s this woman who’s making these trumped-up allegations.

She’s a freelancer, she’s not on payroll.

Problem is, my client’s overseas, right?

He’s a foreigner. Whereas this woman is British, so of course the editors will believe anything she says.

You know what these Brits are like. You can say anything you want about a third world country like Malaysia and they’ll believe you, so long as you’ve got the right accent and went to the right school. ”

Funny Shaw saying that, given the school we both went to. That said, he’s not wrong.

CG: “So you want to approach the person making the allegations?”

Shaw: “That’s right. Enough is enough. My client wants to draw a line under this, get her to leave him alone.”

CG: “It sounds an interesting case.” Defamation not an area I had any experience in, but I’d been clicking around the intranet while Shaw spoke, looking people up. “Our Reputation Management team is led by Ellie Martin. I can put you in touch with her.”

Shaw: “Yeah, Robert mentioned her. Not really a name to strike fear in the hearts of the opposition, is it? ‘Ellie’?”

Didn’t see the relevance.

CG: “She’s ranked Tier 1 for Defamation Law in Law100.”

Shaw: “Good for her. I’m all for senior women. Up against a wall, for preference.”

He laughed. I didn’t think it was that funny.

Shaw, clearing his throat: “Look, my client belongs to a different generation. He’s the same age as our dads. He’d prefer to know a man’s in charge. And I’d feel better knowing it’s you, Charlie. This is highly, highly sensitive stuff. We need someone we can trust, not some expert.”

CG: “This is a specialist area of law, not one I’m familiar with. You will want an expert advising. There’s always a risk, with litigation, that you could be exacerbating any reputational issues.”

Shaw: “We’re hoping it won’t come to that. We want to you to run us through all the options. If we can knock it on the head with a stroppy letter, that would be ideal. Put your letterhead on it, remind her she’d have to pay your fees if we sue—that’s how it works, yeah?”

CG: “Loser pays, yes. There are exceptions, such as—”

Shaw: “That’s what I thought. Look, are you up for it? My client’s got deep pockets. He’s willing to pay top dollar for top service, but you’re going to have to do things his way.”

Sounded like every client I’d ever worked with, except for the part where he was willing to fork out.

Farah had been encouraging me to take more of a lead on client relationships, bringing in new work. Getting this case in would boost my case for partnership.

Not in a rush, but it would be good to make partner. Farah was evidence you can be a partner and still be a good lawyer, despite the extra faff. I could use the money, too.

I would have to involve the Reputation Management team, whatever Shaw said about experts. But if the client wanted me to be the point of contact, well. The client gets what they want. That’s the first rule of the job.

CG: “We’d be happy to help.”

Shaw wanted a note of advice on their options, in the first instance.

CG: “That’s fine. And who’s the client?”

Shaw paused. “Do you need his name? He’d prefer to stay behind the scenes.”

CG: “We will need to clear conflicts and complete our client due diligence processes before we can act.” Shaw stayed silent, so I said: “You can trust we’ll keep the details confidential. We routinely handle sensitive cases of this kind.”

Shaw: “Can’t you treat Blackmount as the client? We’ll cover the fees. Think of it as us approaching you for advice on a hypothetical scenario.”

Bit odd, but I’ve done similar things before—sought advice from overseas counsel on behalf of clients keen to maintain anonymity.

If it was simply a matter of advising on the options available, in circumstances where any action was hypothetical, I couldn’t see that there was an immediate risk of a conflict.

CG: “If your client does decide to take action, we’d need to run conflicts checks on him and the counterparty. And his name would need to be on the court filings, if it goes to court.”

Shaw: “We’ll think about that when we get there, OK? When do you think you could get me the note? Tomorrow?”

We compromised on Friday, as early as I could manage it.

It was bound to be late on Friday: I was going to have to either find someone in the Reputation Management team with the capacity to pick this up, or (more likely) bone up on defamation law myself.

But you have to allow clients their illusions.

Shaw: “Great stuff. How’s your dad, by the way? Keeping his nose clean? Good, good. Pass him my regards, yeah? Dad remembers him fondly.”

Knew to take that with a pinch of salt. If Shaw’s dad was that fond of Ba, presumably they’d have met up once in a while.

Ba was always complaining that his rich friends from the old days had dropped him, Shaw’s dad among them: “This Boey Kah Seng, he calls himself my friend, but does he call me anymore? I can message him a hundred times, I won’t hear back. He thinks he’s better than me.”

No good pointing out that Shaw’s dad did help Ba get out of jail back then, however unresponsive he might be these days. Boey Kah Seng bailed Ba out, when Ba’s own family wouldn’t lift a finger to help him. Shaw had made sure I knew that, back in the day.

Remembering Shaw’s dad made me feel bad that I couldn’t wait to end the call. I’d been thinking that Shaw was worse than I’d remembered. Obnoxious, in a word. Everyone at school had been like him, with a few exceptions, so I hadn’t noticed it at the time.

But it wasn’t his fault. Shaw didn’t have any friends who weren’t awful—I’d met them. Probably couldn’t help himself. And he was trying to do me a favour.

CG: “Will do. Thanks, mate. Appreciate you thinking of us.”

Shaw: “Any time, Charlie. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Couldn’t quite bring myself to lie and say I was, too.

CG: “Yeah. Absolutely.”