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Enron Mail |
John, I will have Sharon try to set something up with you, Mark H., Milly and
McKay for later this week. Yes, Blakes did drop us. It is not so much that they dropped us, but how they dropped us. By way of background, Blakes had been working on the matter for approx. 6 weeks and knew or ought to have known that Westcoast was involved. Last week after we commenced the law suit, Westcoast went ballistic, and last Monday Dan Fournier called to tell me that Blakes had a legal conflict with Westcoast (which he knew was BS). I told him it was not a legal conflict, but a business conflict and that it was too late to raise the issue in the middle of an injunction application, but, although we were not happy about it, as a favour to Blakes we would consider moving the file after the injunction application, when it made sense and in a manner that did not adversely affect us. He seemed OK with that, but later that day, I again spoke to Fournier who admitted that it was not a legal conflict but a business conflict, that they were in an awkward position with Westcoast, and that he had a conference call with the Chairman and the Managing Partner of his firm in Toronto Tuesday morning, as well as the partner responsible for Westcoast. He also warned me that Dalton McGrath would be wearing it internally within Blakes if there was a problem with Westcoast (I assume hoping to guilt me into moving the file). I told him that was unfortunate but that I could not agree to anything that put Enron in a difficult position or adversely affected our interests. I spoke to Milly that night, who agreed, and on Tuesday morning phoned Fournier and told him again that although we were not pleased, we would move the file to another firm as soon as possible after we got through the injunction hearing. Fournier called me back later that day after his call with his Toronto partners and told me that, notwithstanding our repeated offers to move the file in an orderly fashion after the injunction application, that Blakes had made a decision that the file had to be moved immediately, such that they could not represent us on the injunction application or continue to appear as solicitors of record. They said the factors looked at in deciding between us and Westcoast were the length of the relationships, annual billings, complexity of work, strategic importance of the work, and their policy of not acting against established clients. It is notable that the injunction is sought only against Enerdata and NGX, and not Westcoast, which I pointed out to Fournier, and that I had previously given a reasonable solution to Blakes to solve a problem of their own making. Fournier also admitted that we are a strategic client, with more complex work and higher annual billings. In other words, I think it was all crap, and we lost out to a senior Blakes Toronto partner who did not pay attention when to the matter when Blakes first took it on and who, after the fact, is looking after an upset Toronto client in a way that put us in an awkward position and makes us look weak to Westcoast. I should point out that Robert Anderson and Dalton McGrath have handled the situation excellently, and have been working hard to transition the file while I try to find replacement counsel, and opposed the decision of their Toronto office at their own personal expense. I think Fournier wanted to do likewise, but he ultimately is more political and accommodated the politics of his firm, which is disappointing. John J Lavorato@ENRON 12/10/2000 09:08 AM To: Peter Keohane/CAL/ECT@ECT cc: Subject: Re: NGX/CEL Litigation Now that we sent the first blow, lets get everyone together to discuss our future steps. Next week is a nighmare but perhaps you could set up a conference call sometime Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. Also, did Blakes definately drop us on this file or have they reconsidered.
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