Peter Matthew James Gray

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Peter Matthew James Gray, a salaried partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP acting for the Republic of Djibouti in High Court litigation against Mr Boreh, was found to have deliberately and dishonestly misled the High Court and opposing solicitors (Byrne and Partners) in relation to a dating error on transcripts of intercepted telephone calls. The error meant a terrorism conviction relied upon was unsafe. The Tribunal found Allegations 1.1 (misleading Third Affidavit), 1.2 (allowing misleading submissions before Flaux J), 1.3 (misleading correspondence to Byrne) and 1.5 (misleading Fourth Affidavit) proved, each with dishonesty. Allegation 1.4 (inducing a junior colleague) was found not proved. The Tribunal applied the Ivey test and found dishonesty on all four proven allegations. The Respondent was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £42,525. His subsequent High Court appeal was dismissed by Linden J in March 2022.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• Proper basis for allegations
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Deliberate and dishonest conduct in high-value High Court litigation involving a global freezing injunction
• Breach of the fundamental duty to conduct litigation fairly and not to mislead the court
• Sustained course of evasive and misleading conduct over a period of time (August 2013 to November 2014)
• Use of ambiguity and equivocation to conceal the truth
• The court was misled into granting a freezing injunction relied upon in extradition, INTERPOL and money laundering proceedings

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary findings; otherwise unblemished career spanning over two decades
• Self-reported the conduct to the SRA on 25 February 2015
• Numerous character references praising his honesty and integrity, plus oral evidence from three referees
• Working under significant stress, overwork and extensive travel with inadequate team resources
• Significant reliance on and consultation with Leading Counsel
• Substantial delay - six years since the misconduct and Flaux J's findings
• Loss of employment, reputation and entire practice