From Enron to News
cantankerous is always interested in the background of lawyers in the news. Interesting, isn’t it, that Jon Chapman, the News International Director of Legal Affairs, to whom the correspondence in Robert Peston’s ‘smoking gun’ News of the World police corruption scoop is addressed, worked as a senior in-house solicitor at Enron from 1996 until its bankruptcy in late 2001? From the Enron Scandal to the News International phone hacking and police corruption scandal. An impressive CV, indeed. Any predictions of where Jon Chapman will work next?
Jon Chapman, formerly of News International
UPDATE: The Daily Telegraph reports that Jon Chapman has already left News International. It will be fascinating to see how Jon Chapman manages to further improve his already impressive CV. Let cantankerous know if you have any idea where he is now.
Jon is an outstandingly capable professional as well as a decent man and a loyal friend. I’m qualified to make that statement because I’ve known him for more than 30 years. But what qualifies you to make your ‘cantankerous’ statements? Hmm – let me see… Ah yes: you’ve listened to the incoherent prattle of Robert Peston (grinding an axe for the BBC, methinks?) and the self-serving accusations of an octogenarian Ozzie organ grinder and his monkey of a son. It’s not Jon’s fault if his last-but-one boss turned out to be a crook while his last boss may yet prove to have presided over a whole nest of them.
One of the reasons that CVs are interesting is because they demonstrate the choices individuals have made about what jobs to do and for whom to work. Jon Chapman chose to work for Enron and News International. Only he can know the reasons why. But, let’s be frank, he didn’t chose to work for Oxfam, did he?
Robert Peston is certainly capable of incoherent prattle and none of it was repeated here. Peston merely gained access, no doubt through his mate, Will Lewis, at News International, to important documents. I don’t trust the spin he put upon them any more than you appear to and I am sure he was used for media management. Peston has been much quieter about News International since the Metropolitan Police issued public warnings about the undermining of its investigations.
This article was written more than a week before the Murdochs appeared before the Select Committee. I am no fan of Murdoch’s politics though you cannot but admire his extraordinary business achievements. His son, however, appears to have the brains and good looks of a chimp and, worse still, seems to have swallowed the MBA handbook whole.
I am pleased that you have known Jon Chapman a long time, probably since Winchester or Oxford I guess, and I have no doubt that he is capable and a loyal friend. We will find out about Jon Chapman’s actions at News International through the police and parliamentary investigations.
I did not write out of malice. I wrote about this because it is important. It is nearly always overpaid professionals, predominantly members of the public school and Oxbridge establishment, working in-house or for City firms, who have provided cover for much that has gone wrong in the UK, whether that is massive tax evasion, or avoidance as the professionals euphemistically prefer to call it, by already very wealthy individuals or corporations, or signing off the accounts of HBOS, Enron, Northern Rock, Polly Peck, BCCI, etc.
Professional bodies, and professionals themselves, should be held to account and ensure that ethical and moral standards are maintained and frankly they aren’t. Many professionals in the City of London seem far happier to just take the money and keep quiet. And, white collar crime is rarely investigated, and even less frequently punished, often brushed under the carpet on the basis that: ‘He’s a good chap, one of us. I’ve known him more than 30 years, since prep school/Winchester/Oxford. Just been a bit unlucky with the spiv/Australian/commoner/foreigner he worked for’. Sound familiar?