Dechert, Ex-Wall Street Journal Reporter Settle Hacking Suit

An ex-Wall Street Journal reporter reached a financial settlement with Dechert in his lawsuit alleging the law firm aided a hacking scheme that led to his firing.

Dechert and journalist Jay Solomon “have concluded a settlement of this matter,” Solomon said in a statement Friday. The deal involved a financial settlement, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The settlement ends a suit Solomon brought against Dechert in October, alleging the firm participated with others in a sophisticated operation that led to the illegal retrieval of his communications with Farhad Azima, an Iranian-American aviation executive and source of the reporter’s.

Solomon declined to comment beyond his statement. His lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. Counsel for Dechert declined to comment.

Solomon, formerly a foreign affairs reporter at the Journal, initially alleged Dechert participated in a racketeering enterprise. He argued that his communications were spread online in a way that created the “wrongful” impression that he and Azima were engaged in unethical or fraudulent dealings. The Journal fired Solomon in 2017 for violating its ethics standards.

Dechert in a February motion to dismiss called Solomon’s claims “untimely” and “without merit.” The reporter was the victim of his own “serious ethical lapses,” the firm said.

Solomon is now the global security editor at Semafor. On Aug. 14 he voluntarily dismissed Dechert and former partners Neil Gerrard and David Hughes as defendants in a lawsuit that claimed violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, among other charges.

Solomon is still pursuing claims against Vital Management Services Inc., Israel Insight Analysis and Research LLC, SDC-Gadot LLC, and KARV Communications Inc.

The October lawsuit was one of several to target Dechert and Gerrard, a London-based white-collar attorney until his retirement in 2020. Azima last fall sued Dechert and Gerrard over the same alleged scheme.

The lawsuit, which remains pending in New York’s Southern District, claims Gerrard played a key role in the hacking scheme while working for a United Arab Emirate that Azima once did business with.

In July, Azima’s attorneys claimed in a court filing that directors of an India-based cyber firm admitted to hacking Azima’s computers on orders from Gerrard and Nicholas Del Rosso, a private investigator who has done work on Dechert’s behalf.

The case is Solomon v. Dechert LLP, D.D.C., No. 1:22-cv-03137, 8/18/2023