The UK office of the global law firm White & Case is being investigated by the solicitors’ regulator over its role in one of the world’s biggest financial scandals.
According to legal documents, it is claimed that more than £3.3bn was embezzled from 1MBD, a Malaysia state development fund, from 2009-15. The pilfered money was allegedly used to fund purchases and investments across the world, including properties in London and New York, a yacht, a private jet and tens of millions of pounds funding the film The Wolf of Wall Street. Najib Razak, the former prime minister of Malaysia who was then chair of 1MDB, was jailed for his involvement in the scandal in 2020.
One key alleged fraud involved a 2009 joint venture between 1MDB and the oil firm PetroSaudi International. White & Case represented PetroSaudi in relation to the “scam” joint venture.
In correspondence seen by The Observer, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) confirms that the UK offices of the international law firm are being investigated over claims involving its role in the scandal.
A civil claim filed in the Malaysian courts in 2024 by 1MDB named White & Case as a defendant in the case, with a claim for $1.8bn. White & Case represented PetroSaudi Holdings (Cayman) Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of PetroSaudi International.
It is claimed 1MDB invested $1bn in the joint venture with PetroSaudi and that White & Case knew the joint venture was “designed to defraud 1MDB”.
Two of PetroSaudi’s executives, Tarek Obaid and Patrick Mahony, obtained a further $500m from the fund in 2010 and $330m in finance for a drilling project in Saudi Arabia in May 2011. A Swiss court convicted them of charges including fraud and money laundering in August 2024, with Obaid sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment while Mahony received a six year sentence. Both men are appealing.
The British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown, who first uncovered the 1MDB scandal, recently passed the court filings in Malaysia involving White & Case to the SRA. It responded that an investigation officer had reviewed the information and was satisfied the matter needed “to be investigated further”.
The Observer has separately confirmed that the firm is under investigation. The SRA can impose unlimited fines for certain breaches involving economic crime.
In response to questions concerning White & Case from The Observer, an SRA spokesperson said: “We cannot confirm or deny if we are investigating.”
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White & Case said it rejected the claims made in the high court in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A spokesperson for the solicitor denied claims made in the high court in Malaysia: “We strongly refute any suggestion that White & Case acted in any way inconsistent with the highest ethical and professional standards. We are vigorously defending ourselves against the allegations in the complaint, which have no legal or factual bases.”
Photography by Jim Kidd/Alamy