Alleged Solicitation: I Unilaterally Sent the Email, Adekunbi Ogunde Admits
Amidst the media reaction trailing an email sent to Saipem SPA by a Partner at Wole Olanipekun & Co (WOC), the lawyer at the center of it all, Ms. Adekunbi Ogunde has admitted to having unilaterally sent the email without consulting with other Partners at WOC or other persons conversant with recent happenings in litigation circles.
In a press release issued by her on June 27, 2022, Ms. Ogunde stated that she found out about the Saipem matter through an online article, and she unilaterally reached out to Saipem about the said matter, which unknown to her, was no longer before the court.
In her words, “I made certain careless representations and inferences in my email of 20th June, 2022, that could have been easily interpreted to mean that the firm could help secure some advantage in the court for Saipem. I must therefore retract such representations and state categorically that, since joining the law firm in December 2021, I have never seen any person at the firm (including its Founding and Managing Partners), engage in any unwholesome or unethical practice, in the manner that will suggest that the firm can somehow ‘influence’ judicial outcomes by improper means.”
