The Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), an arm of the Body of Benchers (BoB) that disciplines erring lawyers, has disbarred Adekunbi Ogunde.
The Cable reports that the spokesperson of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Akorede Lawal said the decision to remove Ogunde from the list of legal practitioners in Nigeria was reached on Thursday.
According to Lawal, the sanction “is subject to the right of appeal of the counsel to the supreme court”.
In June 2022, Ogunde wrote Saipem Contracting Nigeria Ltd, a client of Ajumogobia & Okeke law firm, to convince the company to have Wole Olanipekun & Co. represent it in a case worth millions of dollars.
Olanipekun was at the time chairman of the BoB.
Ogunde, who was in charge of getting business deals at Wole Olanipekun & Co, told Saipem that Olanipekun had more “influence” with judges.
Lawyer Adekunbi Ogunde releases statement after failed attempt to snatch Saipem from Ajumogobia
Olanipekun has since apologised to Ajumogobia, stating that he never approved the email sent by Ogunde.
In August 2022, Ogunde began a leave of absence from legal practice following the controversy around her email to Saipem.
Ogunde said she regretted her action, adding that she acted on her own without the knowledge of anyone at Wole Olanipekun & Co.
Despite her efforts to correct her missteps, the NBA wrote a petition to the LPDC, asking it to probe Wole Olanipekun & Co. over the incident.
The NBA also asked Olanipekun to step down from his position as BoB chairman to enable the LPDC conduct a fair probe of his law firm.
The association urged the LPDC to prosecute Ogunde over “professional misconduct”.
