More details have emerged about sexual and racial harassment and bullying at CMS Cameron McKenna's CIS Group, which appear to contradict the firm's version of events.
Cameron McKenna was at pains last week to insist that it took seriously the problems in the group, which deals with the former Soviet Union, and had dealt with the claims properly under its equal opportunities policy following an internal investigation.
And after a second investigation, by a lawyer from the firm's commercial litigation department who was unconnected with the people and events in its CIS Group, it even reviewed the policy itself, issuing an updated version of its staff handbook.
But Legal Week now understands that the rot had gone on much longer and had spread far further than the firm admitted, and that employees have alleged that several complaints under the grievance procedure were not dealt with.
One former lawyer with the City firm, Natasha Lobova, has claimed that her colleague, Ilia Iaroslavski, called her an "old disgusting slut" three times during a dinner on 11 January, 1998 with two other lawyers from the firm's Tashkent office and their wives, the Sidelnikovs and Surkovs.
An hour later, before the same witnesses, he said to her: "One can only sleep with you for a lot of money. How much do I have to pay you to screw you," Lobova claimed.
The revelations come only a week after top officials at the firm told Legal Week that Lobova's claim to an industrial tribunal, which was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, complained only about Iaroslavski's treatment of the group's secretary, Veronica Pescud, and did not allege any harassment of herself.
Bill Shelford, the senior partner, Robert Derry-Evans, the managing partner, and John Renz, the director of personnel, claimed that there had been only one incident of sexual harassment – of Pescud in December 1997 – and that the comments were ambiguous in Russian and wholly innocuous when translated into English.
Yet Lobova claimed that bullying and harassment also extended to three other female employees, Ellen Wolcheck, Olga Baibakova and Tatiana Desjabert-Stevenson, at that time lawyers in the Tashkent, Moscow and London offices of the group respectively.
Lobova also alleged that Iaroslavski made inappropriate comments to her clients. "Why do you always come to our office so late at night?" he asked a lawyer from British American Tobacco in autumn 1997. "Our women are very expensive, with the exception of Natasha, who is quite old so nobody would agree to pay too much for her."
Another time he allegedly told representatives of Lonrho that if they wanted to have sex with "our women" – using an obscene gesture to indicate intercourse – "this will cost you extra and we will include these services in your next bill".
Cameron McKenna's staff handbook at the time clearly stated that "innuendoes, gesturing, suggestive remarks, offensive language or jokes, personal comments, sexual advances, the display of offensive materials, unwelcome physical contact or closeness are not acceptable behaviour". It goes on to say that action under the firm's disciplinary procedures will be taken and that "this action may include dismissal".
However, Derry-Evans said last week that he did not accept Iaroslavski's offer to resign because the case was not "black and white". Instead, Iaroslavski's hopes of a partnership were put on hold as a result of Pescud's complaints.
Pescud's claim before an industrial tribunal, also settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, included allegations that Iaroslavski had asked to see her breasts, had instructed her to search for pornography on the Internet for him and had told her, in front of colleagues, that she would have sex with him if he took her to a restaurant, according to one source close to the applicants.
"There was no complication in understanding sentences like 'show me your breasts' or 'will you [have sex] with me if I buy you this kind of flowers' or 'old slut'," said the source.
The firm also claimed that the first it knew of the complaints by Lobova and Liza Horstkamp was when it was contacted by their solicitors. But both employees say they had tried to use the firm's internal complaints procedures.
Horstkamp wrote to Derry-Evans in August 1998 complaining that since she had expressed support for Pescud's sexual harassment complaints she had not been supported by the group head, Elena Kirillova. Lobova claims she complained in person about Iaroslavski's treatment of her to Kirillova and in writing to Renz on 31 January and to Derry-Evans in a telefax on 30 July 1998, but no action was taken.
She also served a questionnaire on the firm under the Sex Discrimination Act and Race Relations Act in August 1998, which she claimed had not been answered. The firm's executives told Legal Week that, while she is nominally the group head, Kirillova was involved with marketing and was not responsible for dealing with Iaroslavski's behaviour.
Yet Kirillova had also received complaints from male lawyers in her group about Iaroslavski's treatment of female colleagues as far back as October 1996.
Another lawyer formerly with the group, a witness in the Lobova case, reported to her that Iaroslavski's behaviour was inappropriate and that no measures had been taken to deal with it. From the start of his employment with the firm, the lawyer had noted that Iaroslavski "would make coarse jokes and use language which I felt was unacceptable".
As early as February 1995, Iaroslavski boasted to him of hiring a prostitute in the Ukraine where they were together on a business trip and described the experience "in graphic detail". And in 1996, discussing secretarial recruitment plans with Kirillova, he said that applicants should have big breasts and nice legs, according to the lawyer, who was present.
Contacted on Tuesday about the discrepancies between the firm's account of the affair and those of other former staff members, Renz said that the first investigation only looked at the original complaint from Pescud, and that although other incidents emerged during the course of inquiries, the firm could not take them into consideration when disciplining Iaroslavski.
And while he acknowledged that Pescud's claims to the industrial tribunal were not ambiguous, he maintained that the original comments she complained about to the company were. Iaroslavski strenuously denied the later claims. Renz also insisted that the firm did not receive any written grievance from either Lobova or Horstkamp.
"There is no way we would have ignored a complaint like that," he said. And although he thought Kirillova was aware that there was "an issue", anything said to her was in the form of a comment rather than a formal grievance.