Matthew Parish Explained

Matthew Parish
Birth Place:Headingley, Leeds, England
Occupation:Lawyer, academic, author, international relations expert
Criminal Charges:Fraud
Criminal Penalty:3 years prison

Matthew Parish is a British international lawyer and scholar of international relations, based in England and Eastern Europe. In September 2021, Parish was sentenced by a Swiss court to three years in prison for his role staging a fraudulent arbitration to prove the authenticity of incriminating evidence in a political dispute between rival members of the Kuwaiti ruling family.[1]

Early life

Parish was born in Leeds, in West Yorkshire.[2] He is a graduate of Cambridge University.

Career and publications

Parish worked in the legal department of the International Supervisor for Brčko, part of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[3] [4] [5] His first book, on reconstruction in post-war Brčko, A Free City in the Balkans (2009),[6] drew on his experience working for the OHR.[3] The book has been criticized for being too sceptical of the international community's statebuilding efforts in the country.[7]

Parish's second book, Mirages of International Justice, was published in 2011. The book describes international law as "for the most part quite useless". According to a sceptical review by Christian Axboe Nielsen, the book "concludes by wishing that both international law and international organizations would disappear from the face of the earth". Nielsen compares the book unfavourably to A Free City in the Balkans, describing the latter as making "provocative and, by comparison, cogent arguments".[8]

Parish left Akin Gump's Geneva office for Holman Fenwick Willan's (HFW) Geneva office in 2011.[9] In December 2014 he and a colleague at HFW set up their own practice, Gentium Law Group.[10] [11] Gentium was one of the first boutique arbitration law firms that involved teams of senior arbitration lawyers splitting away from large established law firms and forming their own smaller practices under new brands. The group was nominated as a Global Arbitration Review Top 100 Law Firm worldwide in 2016 and 2017.[12] [13] In November 2018 Parish ceased to manage the company having handed control to a new partner.[14]

Legal issues

In 2018, Parish was found guilty of criminal defamation in Switzerland for making reports to Western intelligence services accusing his former clients, Murat Seitnepesov and Konstantin Ryndin, of money laundering, fraud and financing terrorism.[15] Sentenced to two months,[16] Parish reports in a self-published book that he spent 23 days in prison.[17]

Parish was further charged in 2019.[18] He was subsequently fined, given a one-year suspended prison sentence and instructed by the court to see a psychiatrist. Reuters reported that a spokesman for the Geneva prosecutor's office said: "Mr. Parish is found guilty of defamation, calumny, a coercion attempt and of failing to conform with an authority’s decision." Parish indicated his intention to appeal the conviction.[19]

Parish has also been convicted in Switzerland for his role in a fraudulent arbitration in a dispute between rival members of the Kuwaiti ruling family aimed at falsely authenticating fraudulent videos showing corruption and breach of Iran sanctions.[20] [21] [22] [23] AP reported in February 2021 that a court hearing had been held and adjourned until August 2021.[24] [25] In September 2021, Parish was convicted and sentenced to three years' jail time and was banned from practicing law in Switzerland.[26] [27] As AP reports, "Judge Gonseth said he was an arbitration expert and 'manifestly' involved at all stages of the process".[28] [23]

Works

Books

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Farge . Emma . 2021-09-10 . Kuwait's Sheikh Ahmad convicted of forgery in Geneva trial . en . Reuters . 2023-09-13.
  2. http://www.matthewparish.com/biographie.html Biography
  3. News: Matthew Parish, A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia. Kenneth. Morrison. Balkan Insight. 15 June 2010. 4 November 2023.
  4. News: Welcome to Brčko, Europe's only free city and a law unto itself. Peter. Geoghegan. The Guardian. 14 May 2014. 4 November 2023.
  5. News: Iz OHR za etto.ba: Tvrdnje Parisha o smjeni visokog predstavnika nisu tačne. Etto. Mirna. Sadiković. 4 November 2023.
  6. Matthew Parish, "A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia" (London: I.B.Tauris 2009)
  7. Jelena. Subotic. A free city in the Balkans: reconstructing a divided society in Bosnia, by Matthew Parish, New York, I.B. Tauris, 2009, xvii + 256 pp. + maps, illustrations (hardback), ISBN 978-1848850026. Nationalities Papers. 38. 3. 440–442. 2010. 10.1017/S0090599200039787. 186664720 .
  8. Nielsen. Christian Axboe. Mirages of international justice: the elusive pursuit of a transnational legal order, by Matthew Parish, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar, 2011, 268 pp., £75 (Hardback), ISBN 978-1-84980-408-0. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. 13. 1. 2013. 110–112. 10.1080/14683857.2013.773185. 153751608 .
  9. Web site: CDR – Commercial Dispute Resolution. Adam. Muckle. Arbitration, Litigation, Dispute Resolution | CDR Magazine.
  10. https://www.shab.ch/shabforms/servlet/Search?EID=7&DOCID=1897317
  11. https://globalarbitrationreview.com/editorial/1035366/gentium-law-group{{Dead link|date=October 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
  12. Web site: Global Arbitration Review – GAR 100 – 9th Edition. globalarbitrationreview.com.
  13. Web site: GAR Arbitration Surveys. 2017-02-23. Globalarbitrationreview.com.
  14. https://www.shab.ch/shabforms/servlet/Search?EID=7&DOCID=HR02-1004491200
  15. News: Miller. Hugo. Hoffman. Andy. June 5, 2018. Telling Tale About Russian Client Lands Swiss Lawyer in Jail. Bloomberg L.P.. https://web.archive.org/web/20180612151714/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-06/telling-tales-about-russian-clients-lands-swiss-lawyer-in-jail . 12 June 2018.
  16. News: Swiss Lawyer Imprisoned After Making Fraud Accusations. Lydia. Osborne. Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. 6 June 2018. 11 February 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180615033243/https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/8167-swiss-lawyer-imprisoned-after-making-fraud-accusations . 15 June 2018.
  17. Book: Parish, Matthew. Spy's Diary: Essays from a Maximum Security Swiss Prison. 2018. Matthew Parish. https://web.archive.org/web/20220211045118/https://d085b3be-2bc3-46ba-b3cf-cf0b6e23d977.usrfiles.com/ugd/d085b3_f6de780ea8774377bca725e756ec6125.pdf . 11 February 2022.
  18. Web site: British lawyer faces new charges in Geneva. globalarbitrationreview.com . https://web.archive.org/web/20201027042309/https://globalarbitrationreview.com/british-lawyer-faces-new-charges-in-geneva . 27 October 2020 .
  19. News: Farge. Emma. 29 February 2020. Swiss court convicts British lawyer of defaming oil trader to MI5. Reuters. 27 May 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200229232545/https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-switzerland-court-trader/swiss-court-convicts-british-lawyer-of-defaming-oil-trader-to-mi5-idUKKBN20N0WZ . 29 February 2020.
  20. News: A Genève, trois avocats et un cheikh sont inculpés pour faux arbitrage. Le Temps. September 16, 2016. letemps.ch . https://web.archive.org/web/20180613134342/https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/geneve-trois-avocats-un-cheikh-inculpes-faux-arbitrage . 13 June 2018.
  21. News: Un puissant membre du CIO renvoyé au tribunal pour faux arbitrage. Besson. Sylvain. 16 Nov 2018. Le Temps. 2018-11-17. fr . https://web.archive.org/web/20230831045210/https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/geneve/un-puissant-membre-cio-renvoye-tribunal-faux-arbitrage . 31 August 2023.
  22. News: Powerful Kuwaiti IOC member to be tried in Switzerland for forgery. 17 Nov 2018. Agence France-Presse. 2018-11-17. en. 2018-11-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20181117233555/https://www.afp.com/en/news/824/powerful-kuwaiti-ioc-member-be-tried-switzerland-forgery-doc-1ax1v23. dead.
  23. Web site: Lawyers charged in Geneva over fake arbitration. 2021-07-20. globalarbitrationreview.com. en . https://web.archive.org/web/20210720182139/https://globalarbitrationreview.com/lawyers-charged-in-geneva-over-fake-arbitration . 20 July 2021 .
  24. Web site: Trial of Olympic sheikh on forgery charge pushed back. 2021-05-08. AP NEWS. 20 April 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210508132806/https://apnews.com/article/kuwait-olympic-games-geneva-9c77ef49910db515b5369c4afa7afc09 . 8 May 2021.
  25. News: AP. 2021-04-13. Forgery trial of Olympic powerbroker now set to open in August. Business Standard India. 2021-05-08 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210415064640/https://www.business-standard.com/article/sports/forgery-trial-of-olympic-powerbroker-now-set-to-open-in-august-121041300985_1.html . 15 April 2021.
  26. News: AP . PTI & . 2021-09-11 . Olympic power broker Sheikh Ahmad found guilty of forgery . en-IN . The Hindu . 2023-11-02 . 0971-751X.
  27. Web site: مركز رفع وتحميل صور وملفات رابط مباشر. 2022-01-10. 2022-01-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20220110172509/https://up4net.com/uploads4/up4net.com163275145015861.pdf. dead.
  28. Web site: Olympic power broker Sheikh Ahmad found guilty of forgery. Associated Press. 10 September 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210917012729/https://apnews.com/article/sports-europe-middle-east-geneva-2020-tokyo-olympics-5599b701407ea05fcd1b2cb76bc394f4 . 17 September 2021.

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