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On September 16, the city of Gothenburg has terminated all framework agreements between Front Advokater and the municipality, the city writes in a press release.
An examination of the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper revealed suspicions of serious financial irregularities within the law firm, which according to several informants must have billed more hours than they actually worked when making assignments for the city of Gothenburg.
In April this year, Front CEO Roland Adrell stepped down and resigned from the agency.
An external review de Front Advokater, according to the municipality, indicated that the invoices do not correspond to the company’s time reports.
– The investigation carried out by our external auditor showed some easily detectable errors, such as the way the invoices were specified. But the serious accusations that came eight or ten months ago concerned lawyers assigning overtime to bills and using inexperienced lawyers. And there was a testing problem that we did not have access to all the information in their time accounting system, Henrik Karlsson, managing director of purchasing and acquisitions, tells DN.
Since several informants have come forward and reported systematic fraud within Front Advokater, the City of Gothenburg believes that there is now a basis for completely breaking away from the law firm.
For Göteborgs-Posten Jonas Wahlbom, a lawyer who previously worked for Front, has said that it was widely known within the law firm that employees put in more hours than required for assignments when billing the city of Gothenburg.
– Front has had this as an established business method. Unlike other agencies, only the co-owners were the clients responsible for the acquired affairs. This meant that only the co-owners had control over what hours were actually billed in those particular cases. It allowed to invoice the time that was not worked without the knowledge of those who actually worked with the cases. Without this approach, I am convinced that someone would have reacted sooner, Jonas Wahlbom tells the newspaper.
His decision and that of others to report the wrongdoing has been instrumental in the City of Gothenburg’s decision to rescind the agreements.
– I do not want to go into details about what our conversations with these people have given in detail. But we have had conversations with various people that we consider credible and who, based on the roles they have had, should have a good knowledge. This makes us feel confident to move on, says Henrik Karlsson.
Administration in general The assessment is that Front Advokater has invoiced in a way that constitutes a serious breach of the contract and also a serious error in the exercise of the profession.
According to Henrik Karlsson, the Gothenburg City Council has discussed the issue of reporting the Front to the police, but has yet to make any decisions on possible reports or claims for damages.
– We have just come so far that we have rescinded the agreements and that decision was made yesterday. How we do it with a police report or damages, we’ll see later, he says.
Read more about what is happening in Gothenburg.
