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 misled the court and opposing solicitors regarding a dating error on transcripts of intercepted telephone calls that underpinned a terrorism conviction relied upon in a freezing injunction application. The Tribunal found Allegations 1.1 (misleading Third Affidavit), 1.2 (allowing misleading submissions at the September 2013 hearing), 1.3 (misleading correspondence to Byrne and Partners) and 1.5 (misleading Fourth Affidavit) proved beyond reasonable doubt, and found his conduct on each was dishonest applying the Ivey test. Allegation 1.4 (inducing a junior colleague) was found not proved. The Tribunal ordered the Respondent struck off the Roll and to pay costs of £42,525. His appeal to the High Court was dismissed.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Not mislead the court
• Not mislead third parties or opponents
• Uphold public trust in the profession

Aggravating factors:

• Deliberate and dishonest conduct over an extended period
• Misleading the High Court to obtain a global freezing injunction
• Use of equivocation and ambiguous language to conceal the true position from opposing solicitors (Byrne and Partners)
• Continued evasive conduct when the dating error was raised, breaching fundamental duty not to mislead the court
• Sole culpability resting with the Respondent

Mitigating factors:

• Self-reported the conduct to the SRA on 25 February 2015
• No previous disciplinary findings; otherwise unblemished career of over two decades
• Significant character evidence praising his honesty and integrity
• Acted under significant stress, overwork and extensive travel as the only partner supervising the matter
• Significant personal consequences already suffered (loss of employment, reputation and practice)
• Delay of approximately six years between misconduct and Tribunal hearing