Bressler Risk Blog

“Malpractice Suit Against K&L Gates Heads Back to Texas Trial Court” —

• “A conflict-of-interest suit against K&L Gates is likely headed back to a Texas trial court after the state Supreme Court on Friday declined to take an interlocutory appeal.”
• “Quantum Materials Corp. of San Marcus sued K&L Gates in 2018 in Hays County district court, alleging the firm engaged in a conflict of interest by representing the business and its lenders in a dispute over a loan. That dispute led to Quantum Materials being sued in three states.”
• “Quantum Materials, which makes tetrapod quantum dots for use in lighting applications, said in its petition that it engaged K&L Gates as counsel in 2016 to do corporate work, including drafting documents for a prospective lender. The company later shifted that legal work in-house, but maintains in the petition that K&L Gates never formally resigned from the representation and still remains as legal counsel to Quantum.”

Previously (March): “K&L Gates Loses Appeal In $100M Nanotech Malpractice Suit” —

• “A ‘rational mind’ could look at a set of uncontested facts in a suit filed by nanotechnology company Quantum Materials Corp. and infer that K&L Gates LLP used the company’s information against it when it sued Quantum, a onetime firm client, on behalf of lenders, a Texas appeals court said Friday.”
• “Backing Quantum in the firm’s bid to fight a denied dismissal, a three-judge Court of Appeals panel said the company made a prima facie case that K&L Gates violated its fiduciary duty to Quantum and engaged in a conflict of interest.”
• “The panel also sided with Quantum on whether K&L Gates’ alleged misconduct was ‘unconscionable’ under the state Deceptive Trade Practices Act, allowing that claim to continue as well.”
• “According to the suit, Quantum hired K&L Gates in 2016 for ‘non-adverse’ corporate advice, which included helping the company go public and the drafting lending agreements with two investor entities. The engagement letter included an advance conflict waiver allowing K&L Gates to represent adverse parties in matters not substantially related to the corporate work, which included attendance by a K&L Gates attorney at Quantum board meetings.”
• “Quantum ultimately sued a transfer agent involved in the dispute. During that case, K&L Gates lawyers filed an intervention petition on behalf of the lenders alleging Quantum Materials had breached its contracts with the lenders. That spurred a Quantum Materials bid to disqualify the firm and accusations that the firm had used Quantum’s confidential information to benefit the lenders and itself. K&L Gates maintained that the advance waiver applied and that the matters were not substantially related.”

“Attorneys’ workplace romance could impact 300 Marysville court cases” —

• “A Marysville prosecutor and a public defender could have compromised more than 300 cases by having a secret workplace relationship.”
• “Sources confirm former city prosecutor Al Treacy and former public defender Marne Whitney were often on opposite sides of the same case, creating an obvious conflict of interest that was never divulged to co-workers or clients.”
• “An internal investigation by city administrators recommended Treacy be fired. But in June, he resigned before that could happen. He was with the prosecutor’s office for 12 years.”
• “A spokesperson for the firm told KING 5, ‘As soon as we learned of the inappropriate relationship between our employee and the Marysville City Prosecutor, we immediately terminated her employment and also reported her actions to the Washington State Bar Association.'”
• “The pair worked on more than 300 misdemeanor cases together in Marysville. Those cases have all been reviewed to determine if any of them should be overturned.”
• “Ken Kagan, an attorney representing Whitney, said there is no evidence that her clients were harmed in any way. In fact, Kagan said, ‘As a result of Ms. Whitney’s efforts in negotiating outcomes for her clients with Mr. Treacy, her clients actually did much better than they might have if they were represented by other lawyers.'”

“A Fresh Look at Personal Interest Conflicts Involving Lawyers’ Relationships With Other Lawyers” —

• “A recent ethics opinion from the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Formal Opinion 494 (Opinion 494) examines the meaning and scope of personal interest conflicts specifically in connection with lawyers’ relationships with opposing counsel, a hitherto often overlooked component of Rule of Professional Conduct (RPC) 1.7. In this article we will discuss the principal conclusions in the opinion, and the lessons it holds for New York lawyers.”
• “When lawyers representing different clients in the same matter or in substantially related matters are closely related, there may be a significant risk that client confidences will be revealed and that the lawyer’s family relationship will interfere with both loyalty and professional judgment.”
• “As a result, each client is entitled to know of the existence and implications of the relationship between the lawyers, before the lawyer agrees to undertake the representation. Thus, a lawyer who has a significant intimate or close family relationship with another lawyer ordinarily may not represent a client in a matter where that other lawyer is representing another party, unless each client gives informed consent, as defined in Rule 1.0(j).”
• “The opinion next deals with imputation. Here the ABA Model Rule materially differs from the current New York Rule, in that the Model Rule provides that personal interest conflicts are not imputed. There is no such exception in place in New York. However, a proposal to change the New York Rule to remove imputation of personal interest conflicts has been proposed by the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association on the recommendation of the Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct, and is now before the Administrative Board…”
• “While Opinion 494 is helpful in raising awareness of what constitutes a personal interest conflict in the context of relationships with other lawyers, it does not set out a clear process that lawyers may use to detect and resolve this (or any) kind of personal interest conflicts.”

“Insurer Seeks Do-Over On Greenberg DQ Bid In Hartford Case” —

• “An Indiana magistrate who let Greenberg Traurig stay in a trade secrets case for a Hartford insurance unit made “clear errors” when she decided the BigLaw firm never represented its current adversary, defendant OneCIS Insurance Co. said Thursday.”
• “The filing is an outgrowth of tit-for-tat disqualifications bids in Hartford’s suit accusing two former employees and OneCIS — their current employer — of stealing trade secrets and customer information.”
• “Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Debra McVicker Lynch granted Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co.’s bid to disqualify OneCIS’ counsel at McGuireWoods because the firm also has a long history representing Hartford on labor and employment issues, creating an unwaivable conflict in the current case.”
• “In a separate order, Judge Lynch also denied OneCIS’ call for Greenberg’s removal, saying there was ‘no evidence’ the firm had ever represented OneCIS. She also said OneCIS had conceded the current case was unrelated ‘to any matter for which Greenberg Traurig has ever provided legal advice to any company related to OneCIS.'”
• “In Thursday’s filing, OneCIS took sharp issue with both those assertions, saying it had “expressly” argued to the contrary in its motion and submitted declarations.”

“Borgata, Ocean Casino’s Law Firms Start Battle Within The Battle” —

• “The core of the lawsuit filed in August by Borgata in Nevada federal court against Atlantic City rival Ocean Resort Casino and two key casino executives is based on whether the executives violated employment contracts and improperly provided Ocean with proprietary trade secrets.”
• “Last week, powerful Philadelphia-based law firm Blank Rome — which represents Ocean — augmented its claim that Jackson Lewis, Borgata’s counsel, be disqualified.”
• “The charge is based on the fact that Jackson Lewis, itself a powerful law firm with hundreds of attorneys, has both Borgata and Blank Rome — its adversary in this case — as ongoing clients, so it thereby ‘violated the duty of loyalty’ to Blank Rome in participating in the lawsuit.”
• “Borgata already had sought to oust Blank Rome from the case because of allegedly unethical conduct — as claimed by Jackson Lewis — in contacting a high-ranking Borgata employee in mid-September without Borgata’s permission.”
• “‘The basis of Blank Rome’s Motion is very simple and straightforward: Jackson Lewis has moved to disqualify and seeks other sanctions against its client, Blank Rome, in its representation of another client, and is therefore taking a directly adverse position to its client,’ an attorney for Blank Rome stated in a 14-page filing early last week. ‘This is not, as Jackson Lewis would have this Court believe, a ‘no harm, no foul’ situation. To the contrary, Jackson Lewis committed a foul, and Blank Rome has been significantly harmed as a result.'”
• “Attorneys for Jackson Lewis have told the court that its work for Blank Rome was minimal — just ‘a handful of visa applications, one or two a year.’ But the volume of work does not erase an obligation for Jackson Lewis to seek permission to serve as an adversary in another case, according to Blank Rome.”

Last week I heard talk of outside counsel guidelines in the wild in excess of 300 pages in length. (I guess this could have been timed as a Halloween update with that metric…)

On that theme, it’s always interesting to keep an eye on how law departments and those who advise and influence them think about key matters like OCG creation and management. Here are a few recent stories on that theme, starting with: “3 Can’t-Miss Best Practices for Outside Counsel Guidelines”  —

• “Since that time, CLDs and law firms alike have grown exponentially, creating an opportunity for in-house counsel to manage OCGs in a way that can generate a level of compliance and savings that is anything but boring. In addition to saving millions, OCGs are a way to improve both law firm billing practices and the underlying behavior they represent.”
• “Ensure the guidelines are received and understood by the right person at the law firm. It may seem obvious to say billing guidelines must actually be read in order to be followed, but the reality is they often go unread. To remedy this problem, organizations must first figure out who at the law firm is in the best position to receive, understand, and implement the guidelines in question.”
• “In addition to sending the guidelines to the right person, you should document that they were received and agreed to, ideally using e-signature. But even then, you’re not done because e-signature does nothing to guarantee actual comprehension occurred.”
• “Make the guidelines simple and unambiguous. Stylistic questions aside, organizations still have to decide what requirements belong in the guidelines vs. what ones are not practical to comply with or unlikely to be enforced.”
• “Enforce the guidelines. If you don’t take your guidelines seriously, nobody else will, either. With this document, you are drawing a line in the sand, but that doesn’t mean law firms won’t cross it. No matter how clear your guidelines are, law firms will violate them—sometimes knowingly, but usually by accident because the task gets deemphasized in favor of other priorities. Without monitoring and enforcement, there is no motivation to read these hideously boring guidelines and put in the effort to comply.”
  “Enforcing guidelines is easier with advances in technology like AI-assisted invoice review, which increases the ROI of the bill review process. Additionally, legal spend and matter management platforms can help with everything from smarter staffing to streamlined communications.”

“Legal Department Challenge: E-Billing Can’t Fully Automate Guideline Compliance” —

• “Using e-billing tools to help manage expenses and track outside counsel’s adherence to guidelines is now pretty much par for the course inside corporate legal departments. But technology alone may not be enough catch errors in law firm billing, a reality that may lead more departments to supplement e-billing solutions with a review by an alternative legal service provider.”
• “From a technology perspective, some of those challenges often have their root in the set of uniform activity codes that law firms enter for different services, such as e-discovery, for instance, and an e-billing system that flags for potential violations of a company’s billing guidelines. Those codes are developed by the Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard, and are updated to reflect tasks centered around emerging practice areas such as privacy.”
• “‘Some GCs may be more welcoming of ‘Our law firms are our partners and yes, we’re absolutely going to pay for first-year associates because we want them to develop.’ Other people may say ‘I’m not paying for training and development,’’ Clem said.”
• “Clem also doesn’t think there’s much of a chance that a more universal and uniform set of billing guidelines would emerge, especially as businesses adapt to the individual hardships caused by the COVD-19 pandemic. Still, not all billing policy violations are strictly accidents.”

“Snell & Willner Won’t Be DQ’d From EB-5 Project Fight”

• “A Colorado federal judge has declined to disqualify Snell & Wilmer LLP from a suit in which Chinese investors seek to recoup the millions they sunk into a condo project under the EB-5 visa program, finding that the firm adequately handled potential conflict of interest issues.”
• “Investors effectively created the conflict for the firm after they amended their complaint against Colorado Regional Center Project Solaris LLLP, its former general partner Colorado Regional Center I LLC and other defendants, changing their claims from being direct to being derivative, according to Tuesday’s order by U.S. District Judge Raymond P. Moore.”
• “The change led Snell & Wilmer’s two clients — Project Solaris and Colorado Regional Center I — to have competing interests, as the investors, led by Jun Li, went from directly suing the defendants to suing various defendants on behalf of Project Solaris, according to Tuesday’s order.”
• “To avoid a conflict in response to the legal maneuverings, Snell & Wilmer stopped representing Project Solaris, which is now representing itself. That the firm continued to represent Colorado Regional Center I does not warrant a disqualification, the judge held.”
• “‘The court finds Snell & Wilmer did not ‘switch sides’ or drop [Project Solaris] in favor of pursuing the interest of another client, CRC 1,’ the order reads. ‘Instead, when Li plaintiffs’ actions created the conflict, Snell & Wilmer recognized the conflict and withdrew from representing [Project Solaris.] They were required to do no more.'”
• “‘Li plaintiffs fail to identify any information Snell & Wilmer would have obtained that would be confidential to [Project Solaris] in light of the relationship between [Project Solaris] and CRC I or how any such unidentified information could be used to the detriment of [Project Solaris,]’ the order reads.”

“Same counsel can’t work for insurer on both priority dispute and AB claim: Court” —

• “An Ontario auto insurer involved in a priority dispute with another insurer should have used a different counsel in that dispute than the one used for the main accident benefits claim with the insureds, the Ontario Superior Court has ruled.”
• “The issue came up in the case of The Personal Insurance Company v. Jia, in which the same counsel represented the insurer in both the priority dispute and in the accident benefits dispute.””The accident benefits claimants raised the issue of a conflict before the Ontario Licensing Appeal Tribunal (LAT). They argued that the insurance company’s counsel, in support of the insurer’s denial of their claim, had misused information that had been compelled from them in an examination under oath during the insurer’s priority dispute with another insurer.”
• “‘[SLASTO] found that there is a conflict in counsel for the insurer acting in both the priority dispute and the benefits dispute,’ the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found. ‘[SLASTO] found that breach of the statutory scheme was improper and prejudicial to the respondents, defeating the carefully balanced process prescribed by law.'”
• “Even if theoretically there may not have been any inherent conflict of interest in the same lawyer representing The Personal in both the priority dispute and the accident benefits actions, how the information was used made a difference in this case, the Ontario Superior Court ruled.”

My friends at InOutsource are hosting the fourth webinar in their virtual risk round table series. These have sparked good interest and discussion from the community, and I’ll be a fly on the wall again at: “VIRTUAL ROUND TABLE: Navigating Today’s Pressing Risk Challenges” —

• DATE: November 19^th at 1 pm Eastern.
• “Because we didn’t leave enough time to discuss them and our survey said you wanted more, we’re going to devote the entire hour of our next roundtable to…Outside Counsel Guidelines!”
• “Fortunately for your family, we’re scheduling this one for the Thursday before Thanksgiving, thereby providing you with lots of OCG conversation starters to drop during your virtual Thanksgiving dinners. Talking points like:
  • Hot take from Max Welsh: OCGs aren’t worth your time! Just stick them in a drawer!
  • What are your operating procedures for reviewing and negotiating terms?
  • How have you leveraged technology to make tracking and complying with OCGs more efficient?

Registration link.

“Doug Emhoff paused his career for his wife Kamala Harris’s aspirations” —

• “If his wife [Kamela Harris] and her running mate, Joe Biden, are elected, Harris would accumulate several firsts: first female vice president, first Black veep, first No. 2 born to Indian American and Jamaican American parents.”
• “He’s the high-powered professional who has sidelined his career to support his wife’s sky-high aspirations — even as his work life is creating a prickly conundrum over possible conflicts of interest if Harris takes office.”
• “In August, Emhoff announced a leave of absence from his law practice. He had continued working as an attorney while Harris was California’s attorney general, and during her campaigns for U.S. senator and the Democratic presidential nomination. This time it was different.”
• “Emhoff presents a more complex set of questions. Over the years, alongside the boilerplate corporate and real estate work, he has sometimes represented heavily regulated companies or firms that might be frowned upon on the left.”
• “He represented Merck in cases involving allegations that the drug Fosamax caused bone disease, an entanglement that could cause appearance problems given Democrats’ criticism of the drug industry. Even more touchy, his clients have included Abbott Laboratories in an OxyContin fraud case, and the arms dealer Dolarian Capital in a dispute related to a contract to transfer weapons from Romania to the Afghan military.”
• “The problem for Emhoff is that his current firm, DLA Piper, has a Washington lobbying presence. Even if he could figure out a way to build a firewall between his legal work and the firm’s lobbying and government work, it’s likely that real or perceived conflicts of interest would be alleged by his wife’s political opponents.”
• “DLA Piper may be uncomfortable with Emhoff returning to the firm, according to two people familiar with its culture who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. DLA Piper declined to answer questions about Emhoff’s future.”
• “There isn’t a clear-cut conflict-of-interest rule governing vice-presidential spouses, said Larry Noble, a government ethics expert who served as general counsel for the Federal Election Commission in Republican and Democratic administrations. But that won’t be Emhoff’s biggest problem, he said. ‘The problem with appearances of conflicts of interest is that they undermine the public’s confidence in their government,’ he said.”

This month’s sponsor thank you to our supporter as Accuity features the PDF summary and expanded commentary of another risk interview. This time Accuity’s Teddy Peck puts the podcast spotlight on Max Welsh from InOutsource.

Their discussion explores issues including: strategies for making the case to invest in risk management, training and developing conflicts staff and navigating Outside Counsel Guidelines.

Here’s a direct link to the PDF article: “In Discussion with A Law Firm Risk Expert” —

• “And that’s because it’s not uncommon for risk to be perceived as a complete cost center and drain on profits. Of course, there are leaders who intellectually understand that there is some benefit to the function in terms of loss prevention. But that can be hard to quantify in precise detail — particularly if risk management is being handled well and the firm isn’t having urgent issues, encountering problems or paying significant hard costs.”
• “It’s definitely ironic. Effective risk teams that have things well under control often struggle to get new investments made — budget, personnel or software — that they know they need to make to improve efficiency and to keep ahead of emerging issues.”
• “If your firm has had an incident or issue, that clearly provides strong support for investment. So if a firm has suffered something like disqualification due to a missed conflict, or information governance problem, like client documents that have been misplaced or retained well beyond a disposition deadline — that creates a clear basis for discussion about change. And that urgency is heightened further if the situation results in an insurance claim and that type of external review.”
• “Well, the broad rule I’d point to is that firms pay close attention to any area of change in policy, process, or even technology that starts to look like a trend or emerging standard. Firms never want to find themselves in a situation where there was an issue that could be traced back to some risk area, policy or capability that they were arguably behind in adopting or adhering to in some regard.”
• “It’s important that the people reviewing these [OCG] terms have both an accurate and a complete understanding of the firm’s capabilities. You don’t want the firm signing on to obligations they only have a 99% ability to implement. Or maybe they are 100% technically capable, but will struggle when it comes to demonstrating compliance or responding to a potential client audit.”

“Fine Increased For Corporate Conflicts Of Interest” —

• “The British Columbia Law Society Review Board increased the fine imposed for a corporate counsel’s conflicts of interest:
  • ‘The matter before this Review Board is the appropriateness of the $5,000 fine assessed against the Respondent for professional misconduct. The Respondent was found to have participated in conflicts of interest over the course of several years, in multiple situations involving his role as corporate counsel, while simultaneously acting for opposing shareholders. As well, he acted as legal counsel in a divorce for one of the shareholders, and in matters involving the arrangements concerning his client’s addiction issues.’
  • ‘In this matter, the Respondent acted for and against different shareholders of a company in two separate share sales while still purporting to act as corporate counsel. The Respondent also acted on behalf of one of the shareholders (“WD”) in a divorce proceeding from his wife, who was another shareholder, where the valuation of the company and the value of the shares would impact all the shareholders. Indeed, the Respondent’s ties to WD were further problematized when at one point, the Respondent held a power of attorney for WD for the sale of the matrimonial home. Finally, the Respondent acted in matters arranging for WD’s drug rehabilitation treatment program.’
  • ‘The Review Board finds that the failure of the Respondent, as a senior lawyer, to identify and avoid these conflicts of interest is serious misconduct.’
• Full decision here.

“Clark Hill Accused of ‘Whitewash’ In Cyber Malpractice Case” —

• “Clark Hill PLC is using a privilege “whitewash” to try to keep every document related to a successful attack on the firm’s network three years ago — including reports from cybersecurity experts hired to figure out how it happened — out of court, a Chinese dissident told a D.C. federal judge on Wednesday.”
• “Guo Wengui, who has accused his former firm of recklessly allowing his political enemies to steal his confidential asylum information, said in a motion to compel discovery that Clark Hill has refused to answer questions about its security systems or the scope of the cyberattack — or even to identify the consultants it hired in the wake of the breach.”
• “To do so, the firm has leaned on its retention of an outside law firm after the attack to justify a ‘blanket withholding’ of virtually all emails and reports about the attack and a forensic analysis of its origins. Wengui likened that to a building owner that hires a plumber and a lawyer after a pipe burst — and then asserts attorney-client privilege over every communication it had about pipes, tenants, repairs and the name of the plumber.”
• “In a motion to dismiss the suit in November, the 650-lawyer firm argued Wengui himself provoked a targeted cyberattack from his enemies by ‘personally announc[ing] the fact that he had applied for asylum in a video that he posted on the internet.'”

“Negotiating with Ransomware Gangs” —

• “For now, it seems that paying ransomware, while obviously risky and empowering/encouraging ransomware attackers, can perhaps be comported so as not to break any laws (like anti-terrorist laws, FCPA, conspiracy and others) ­ and even if payment is arguably unlawful, seems unlikely to be prosecuted. Thus, the decision whether to pay or ignore a ransomware demand, seems less of a legal, and more of a practical, determination ­ almost like a cost-benefit analysis.”
• “When confronted with a ransomware attack, the options all seem bleak. Pay the hackers ­ and the victim may not only prompt future attacks, but there is also no guarantee that the hackers will restore a victim’s dataset. Ignore the hackers ­ and the victim may incur significant financial damage or even find themselves out of business. The only guarantees during a ransomware attack are the fear, uncertainty and dread inevitably experienced by the victim.”

“What’s it really like to negotiate with ransomware gangs?” —

• “It might be the worst-kept secret in all of cybersecurity: the FBI says don’t pay ransomware gangs. But corporations do it all the time, sending millions every year in Bitcoin to recover data that’s been taken “hostage.” Sometimes, federal agents even help victims find experienced virtual ransom negotiators.”
• “That’s what Art Ehuan does. During a career that has spanned the FBI, the U.S. Air Force, Cisco, USAA, and now the Crypsis Group, he’s found himself on the other side of numerous tricky negotiations.”

“200 law firms suspended in UAE for failing to comply with anti-money laundering procedures” —

• “A total of 200 law firms in the UAE that had failed to comply with anti-money laundering procedures have been suspended from practicing for one month.”
• “The Ministry of Justice has also called upon law firms to take necessary measures against money laundering and terrorist financing, Wam reported. The necessary legal measures are outlined in Federal Decree 20 of 2018 with regard to money laundering, executive regulations, and relevant ministerial decisions. The decree is part of the UAE’s efforts to address the risks associated with financial crimes.”
• “The Ministry emphasised the importance of law firms’ role in combating money laundering, as well as the need for lawyers to assume their role in fighting such crimes. Lawyers must also handle clients carefully, report suspicious transactions, and maintaining proper records, the Ministry urged. It added that it had taken recent action against non-compliant lawyers, in addition to the law firm suspensions.”

“FCA: Working from Home Heightens Insider Trading Risks” —

• “In an October 12 speech, the Director of Market Oversight for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) emphasized the need to adapt insider trading controls to account for changes in working conditions due to COVID-19 restrictions.”
• “The Director’s speech started by discussing that global economic conditions have heightened the need for companies to raise capital, and that the UK has seen a significant portion of this activity, with the FCA citing the fact that ‘the UK saw a greater volume of follow-on equity issuance than the next 7 major European bourses combined.'”
• “While this situation presents novel issues for firms and professionals, the FCA emphasized the need for firms to adapt and implement effective insider trading controls. The Director emphasized, ‘[a]t a time where capital raising activity is vital to fuel much needed economic activity, we must be crystal clear that behaviours that risk disrupting that activity will not be tolerated.'”
• “In addition to capital raising, the rise in mergers and acquisitions has presented new challenges. The FCA warned that firms must ensure they have appropriate controls in place to protect against inappropriate activity with respect to mergers and acquisitions.”
• “The FCA highlighted concerns that home work arrangements could present difficulties in ensuring insiders are appropriately keeping information from partners or flatmates that now share workspaces. While these concerns have always existed, the extent of the current at-home worksite may increase those risks: ‘It is absolutely the case that this risk has always existed, but when the separation between work and home life is perhaps harder for some people to navigate, it may be all the more important and acute.’ This line may be harder to draw in a COVID-19 world.”

“Germany seeks arrest of Panama Papers lawyers” —

• “Germany has issued arrest warrants for the founders of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca more than four years after the publication of Panama Papers, an investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.”
• “The spokesperson said that the warrants related to probes that began in 2014 when authorities obtained a subset of data from Mossack Fonseca. The data provided ‘evidence of criminal offences in over 600 cases,’ the spokesperson said.”