10 July 2009

Conservative MP Jonathan Djanogly has just had his expenses raked over for a second time by the Telegraph. But it’s what the shadow minister for 'Corporate Governance' does in his spare time that potentially warrants more scrutiny.

Djanogly lists as his second job, ‘Partner, S. J. Berwin, LLP, solicitors’. Thanks to new rules on outside earnings, sometime soon we’ll learn exactly how much he earns at this commercial law firm. What we won’t know, however, is what exactly he does for them.

SJ Berwin is in the private equity business – it describes itself as being “at the core of European Private Equity”. This extends to involvement with industry lobbying organisation, the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), which claims to represent “virtually every UK-based private equity and venture capital business”.  

SJ Berwin, like many law firms, is involved in lobbying Parliament on behalf of clients. Until relatively recently, its website claimed: “Our lawyers place themselves at the centre of the industry through our lobbying and support of the sector as a whole.” These include Partner, Simon Witney, again described until recently as “heavily involved in lobbying national governments and the European Commission on issues related to private equity and corporate law”. He has also “led the BVCA's lobbying on the Companies Act.”

As shadow business minister, Djanogly was also heavily involved in drafting legislation affecting the industry, including leading the Tory response to the 2006 Companies Act.

As the Bill made its way through parliament in Spring 2006, Witney wrote: “We are lucky to have the inside track – our partner, Jonathan Djanogly, is Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry and will be leading on the Bill for the Opposition as it makes its way through the Commons." He also announced that "a future breakfast briefing will be dedicated to the Bill.”

This invite-only breakfast forum on 5 October 2006 - in association with The Daily Telegraph -  was called “Radical changes to company law: Your last chance to shape the legislation”. Djanogly was a speaker. According to the invite, it was an exclusive opportunity for SJ Berwin clients to “influence the looming debate on the floor of the House of Commons”.

As well as “the inside track” in the form of the shadow minister, SJ Berwin also had an employee seconded to Djanogly's office who was working on the Companies Bill. Trainee solicitor, Billy Reed, wrote that November in The Lawyer: “I work directly with Jonathan Djanogly, who is a Partner at SJ Berwin. The project I worked on in Parliament involved coordinating a team of 40 lawyers who were working for Jonathan… For a lot of my time in Parliament I am working on the Companies Bill. A great deal of my time is therefore taken up with drafting and filing amendments to that Bill.”

Djanogly denies being involved in any lobbying. Earlier this year he told the Guardian: "I do not conduct lobbying on behalf of myself or SJ Berwin LLP and I have not been lobbied by SJ Berwin LLP in relation to the Companies Act or other legislation." SJ Berwin said that it lobbied unpaid for the BVCA.