Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy

Read Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy for Free Online

Book: Read Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy for Free Online
Authors: Eamon Javers
the documents began to surface into public view. At Barbour Griffith and Rogers, the move to release the documents set off panic. The prestigious firm didn’t want the public or the press to know that it had been involved in the spy game.
    On January 24, 2006, the firm’s lead lobbyist on the Alfa account, Keith Schuette, sent an e-mail to his boss, the legendary Washington fixer Ed Rogers. Under the subject heading “Legal,” Schuette wrote, “Ed: Judge has unsealed the complaint against Diligence from KPMG. It has attracted no attention thus far, but I cannot imagine that it will remain quiet forever. Neither we, nor the client are mentioned in the complaint. Current strategy if it comes alive in the press [is] for Diligence to stonewall. Will keep you posted.”
    “What does it say??” responded Rogers, twenty minutes later.
    “Basically that KPMG was harmed by Diligence stealing materials under false pretences etc…. and that they must cease and desist,” wrote Schuette. “Critical issue now is KPMG’s request for expedited discover[y] and judge ruling on the question of jurisdiction. If the judge accepts jurisdiction and agrees to expedited discovery, things will deteriorate in very short order. If he goes against both, then it should die a fairly quiet death.”
    The judge did accept jurisdiction, and permitted discovery. That is the process by which lawyers obtain testimony and documents from the other side in a legal battle. Lawyers can force documents, records, e-mails, and other material from the opponent’s files onto the record. That’s how Schuette’s e-mail later ended up as part of the court record.
    And the Diligence case did not die a quiet death.
     
    A FTER P ROJECT Y UCCA imploded, Nick Day closed the Connecticut Avenue offices of Diligence, LLC, in Washington in exchange for much more modest digs. He moved his own residence to the picturesque French Alpine town of Saint-Gervais, which is only an hour’s drive from Switzerland. He is still in business, although he says that fallout from the Bermuda incident—which included recriminations, resignations, and lawsuits—taught him a lesson. He and his firm have changed their ways in its aftermath. “We essentially help businesses deal with the risks of operating in challenging markets,” Day says. “It’s a role which government agencies don’t necessarily have the resources or understanding to be able to fulfill.”
    Mike Baker, who left the firm well before the Bermuda operation, bounced around at other corporate intelligence firms, for a time running Prescience LLC, his own private intelligence firm serving hedge fund clients. He took on work as a Hollywood script consultant on intelligence matters and writes commentaries for FoxNews.com. He says he is working on a book. In early 2009, though, he and Daywent back into business together for the first time in years. Day’s firm, Diligence, purchased Baker’s firm, Prescience, and Mike Baker went to work in Diligence’s New York offices at 7 Times Square.
    These days, Guy Enright is working for Deloitte and Touche in London. He didn’t come away empty-handed from his encounters with Nick Day. As Project Yucca wound down in 2005, Day, still in the guise of Nick Hamilton, gave Enright a Rolex watch worth thousands of dollars. Enright was led to believe it was a thank-you gift from the British government.
    But that, too, was a lie.
     
    I T HAS NEVER been clear who, exactly, owns Diligence, especially since several investors and owners have come and gone over the years. Day refuses to reveal who owns the spy company today. But one possible source of financial backing is one of the oldest banking families in the world, the Rothschilds.
    In the spring of 2007, the British and American press reported that Diligence had received an infusion of an unknown amount of capital from a fund controlled by Nick Day’s longtime friend Nathaniel Rothschild, then thirty-six years old, the wealthy son

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