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Matthew Parish
Born	Headingley, Leeds, England
Occupation(s)	Lawyer, academic, author, international relations expert
Years active	1998–present
Criminal charges	Fraud
Criminal penalty	3 years prison
Website	www.matthew-parish.com

Matthew Parish is a British international lawyer and scholar of international relations, based in England and Eastern Europe. In September 2021, Parish was sentenced by a Swiss court to three years in prison for his role staging a fraudulent arbitration to prove the authenticity of incriminating evidence in a political dispute between rival members of the Kuwaiti ruling family.

Early life

Parish was born in Leeds, in West Yorkshire. He is a graduate of Cambridge University.

Career and publications

Parish's book on reconstruction in post-war Brcko, A Free City in the Balkans (2009), has attracted domestic and international attention. The book has been criticized for being too sceptical of the international community's statebuilding efforts in the country.

Parish left Akin Gump's Geneva office for Holman Fenwick Willan's (HFW) Geneva office in 2011. In December 2014 he and a colleague at HFW set up their own practice, Gentium Law Group. Gentium was one of the first boutique arbitration law firms that involved teams of senior arbitration lawyers splitting away from large established law firms and forming their own smaller practices under new brands. The group was nominated as a Global Arbitration Review Top 100 Law Firm worldwide in 2016 and 2017.. In November 2018 Parish ceased to manage the company having handed control to a new partner.

Legal issues

In 2018, Parish was found guilty of criminal defamation in Switzerland for making the reports to Western intelligence services accusing his former clients, Murat Seitnepesov and Konstantin Ryndin, of money laundering, fraud and financing terrorism. Sentenced to two months, Parish reports in a self-published book that he spent 23 days in prison.

Parish was further charged in 2019. He was subsequently fined, given a one-year suspended prison sentence and instructed by the court to see a psychiatrist. Reuters reported that a spokesman for the Geneva prosecutor's office said: "Mr. Parish is found guilty of defamation, calumny, a coercion attempt and of failing to conform with an authority’s decision." Parish indicated his intention to appeal the conviction.

Parish has also been convicted in Switzerland for his role in a fraudulent arbitration in a dispute between rival members of the Kuwaiti ruling family aimed at falsely authenticating fraudulent videos showing corruption and breach of Iran sanctions. AP reported in February 2021 that a court hearing had been held and adjourned until August 2021. In September 2021, Parish was convicted and sentenced to three years' jail time and was banned from practicing law in Switzerland. As AP reports, "Judge Gonseth said he was an arbitration expert and 'manifestly' involved at all stages of the process".

Works

Books

• A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia I.B. Tauris, London, October 2009. ISBN 978-1848850026
• Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Edward Elgar, London, May 2011. ISBN 978-1849804080
• Ethnic Civil War and the Promise of Law Edward Elgar, London, 2016. ISBN 978-0857934192

References

1. Farge, Emma (2021-09-10). "Kuwait's Sheikh Ahmad convicted of forgery in Geneva trial". Reuters. Retrieved 2023-09-13.
2. Biography, MattewParish.com
3. ^ Farge, Emma (29 February 2020). "Swiss court convicts British lawyer of defaming oil trader to MI5". Reuters. Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
4. Matthew Parish, "A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia" (London: I.B.Tauris 2009)
5. Muharem Bazdulj, Brcko kao Gdanjsk ili Trst, Oslobodjenje, 20 March 2010
6. Kenneth Morrison, Balkan Insight 15 June 2010 Archived 12 July 2012 at archive.today. Old.balkaninsight.com. Retrieved 2012-06-14.
7. Jelena Subotic, Nationalities Papers, 38(3):440 (May 2010)
8. Muckle, Adam. "CDR – Commercial Dispute Resolution". Arbitration,Litigation,Dispute Resolution | CDR Magazine.
9. https://www.shab.ch/shabforms/servlet/Search?EID=7&DOCID=1897317
10. https://globalarbitrationreview.com/editorial/1035366/gentium-law-group
11. "Global Arbitration Review – GAR 100 – 9th Edition". globalarbitrationreview.com.
12. "GAR Arbitration Surveys". Globalarbitrationreview.com. Retrieved 2017-02-23.
13. https://www.shab.ch/shabforms/servlet/Search?EID=7&DOCID=HR02-1004491200
14. Miller, Hugo; Hoffman, Andy (June 5, 2018). "Telling Tale About Russian Client Lands Swiss Lawyer in Jail". Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018.
15. Osborne, Lydia (6 June 2018). "Swiss Lawyer Imprisoned After Making Fraud Accusations". Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Archived from the original on 15 June 2018. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
16. Parish, Matthew (2018). Spy's Diary: Essays from a Maximum Security Swiss Prison (PDF). Matthew Parish. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 February 2022.
17. "British lawyer faces new charges in Geneva". globalarbitrationreview.com. Archived from the original on 27 October 2020.(subscription required)
18. "A Genève, trois avocats et un cheikh sont inculpés pour faux arbitrage". Le Temps. September 16, 2016. Archived from the original on 13 June 2018 – via letemps.ch.
19. Besson, Sylvain (16 Nov 2018). "Un puissant membre du CIO renvoyé au tribunal pour faux arbitrage". Le Temps (in French). Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
20. "Powerful Kuwaiti IOC member to be tried in Switzerland for forgery". Agence France-Presse. 17 Nov 2018. Archived from the original on 2018-11-17. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
21. ^ "Lawyers charged in Geneva over fake arbitration". globalarbitrationreview.com. Archived from the original on 20 July 2021. Retrieved 2021-07-20.(subscription required)
22. "Trial of Olympic sheikh on forgery charge pushed back". AP NEWS. 20 April 2021. Archived from the original on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
23. AP (2021-04-13). "Forgery trial of Olympic powerbroker now set to open in August". Business Standard India. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
24. ^ "Olympic power broker Sheikh Ahmad found guilty of forgery". Associated Press. 10 September 2021. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021.
25. AP, PTI & (2021-09-11). "Olympic power broker Sheikh Ahmad found guilty of forgery". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2023-11-02.
26. "مركز رفع وتحميل صور وملفات رابط مباشر" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-01-10. Retrieved 2022-01-10.

External links

• Interview with Matthew Parish, 28 August 2010, Part 1
• Interview with Matthew Parish, 29 August 2010, Part 2
• Interview with Matthew Parish, 16 February 2011 Archived 28 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
• Parish's articles on Transconflict
• Parish's articles on Balkan Insight

• Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge
• University of Chicago Law School alumni
• Scholars of nationalism
• International relations scholars
• International law scholars
• Living people
• 1975 births