Over the past decade or so, London has become the destination of choice for wealthy eastern Europeans suing each other over ill-gotten gains.
It causes the occasional grumble about how our taxpayer-funded courts are clogged with ’skis, ’ovs and ’vitches from Russia and the ’Stans.
But it’s also created a cottage industry of corporate lawyers and private investigators here who specialise in “asset recovery”: following the money-laundering trails employed by businessmen and corrupt officials to clean and hide their ill-gotten gains.
Now, I hear there’s talk in Ukraine, one of the most looted countries in Europe, to make use of our skills.
Everybody there knows state money has been pilfered on an industrial scale from the taxpayer. But so corrupt and chaotic is that country, there’s very little chance of its police recouping a fraction.
So a suggestion has been buzzed to its president (a billionaire, of course) for the government to outsource the corruption hunting to a London law firm.
Whatever the London investigators can find and get back from the looters, they get to keep a slice of, with the rest going to Ukraine.
I suspect there are too many vested interests for it to happen, but it’s a novel solution. Not to mention cash enough to keep Holborn lawyers and Shepherd Market sleuths in school fees for generations.
