Is there a client that is too sleazy for Bradley Arant to represent? The law firm is the largest in Alabama and one of the largest in the South--with major offices in Birmingham, Nashville, and Charlotte. And the answer to our question appears to be, "No, no client is too disreputable for Bradley Arant to take on."
We already know about Ted Rollins, the CEO of Charlotte-based Campus Crest Communities. It's a matter of public record that Rollins was convicted for the 1995 beating of his stepson in Franklin County, North Carolina. The assault was so severe that the 16-year-old boy was taken via ambulance to an emergency room and administered oxygen, apparently because blood loss put him at risk for going into shock. It's also a matter of public record that numerous individuals in law enforcement and health care violated North Carolina law by failing to report the incident as a case of child abuse.
In blunt terms, Ted Rollins is a child abuser. But Bradley Arant is happy to represent him, apparently because he belongs to one of the nation's wealthiest families, the folks behind Orkin Pest Control and other highly profitable enterprises. In fact, public documents strongly suggest that Bradley Arant used its clout to help Ted Rollins receive an unlawful divorce judgment in Alabama, one that was so lopsided and disconnected from fact and law that it left his ex wife and two daughters on food stamps in Birmingham.
Now we learn that Bradley Arant also represents HSBC, the mammoth financial-services outfit that is based in London and recently was exposed as a source of international money laundering. Here is a report from Bloomberg, following a U.S. Senate hearing last week:
HSBC Holdings Plc’s head of group compliance, David Bagley, told a Senate hearing he will step down amid claims the bank gave terrorists, drug cartels and criminals access to the U.S. financial system by failing to guard against money laundering.
Bagley was among at least six HSBC executives who testified before the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations today after the panel released a 335-page report describing a decade of compliance failures by Europe’s biggest bank. London- based HSBC enabled drug lords to launder money in Mexico, did business with firms linked to terrorism and concealed transactions that bypassed U.S. sanctions against Iran, Senate investigators said in the report.
How nasty is HSBC? Among its rogues' gallery of slippery customers are the Taliban and Al Rahji, a Saudi Arabian bank whose owners are linked to organizations that finance terror. Translation: HSBC does business with the fine folks who brought you the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
For good measure, HSBC also has ties to major cases of offshore tax evasion. Would you want to be connected to an outfit like that? Bradley Arant apparently has no problem with it.
George R. Parker, one of the firm's Montgomery attorneys, represented various HSBC entities in a 2008 federal lawsuit styled George D. McCarley v. KPMG International, et al. The case involved allegations of fraud connected to a home foreclosure, and considering that it started in the Middle District of Alabama and was appealed to the U.S. Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, it should be no surprise that the corporate defendants prevailed.
Andrew J. Noble III and John David Owen, of Bradley Arant's Birmingham office, represented an HSBC entity in a 2011 state lawsuit styled Moore v. HSBC Mortgage Services. The complaint involved allegations of breach of contract and other wrongdoing related to construction of a new house. Once again, the corporate defendant prevailed--with Bradley Arant's assistance.Thanks to recent revelations, we now know that the corporate defendant's parent company, HSBC, does business with terrorists, drug cartels, and other criminals.
We also know that doesn't seem to bother Bradley Arant in the least.
