Kirkland, Latham Chided for Actions in China Company Fight

A judge in the British Virgin Islands scolded lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins for work on a financial transaction that could lead to disciplinary steps.

The lawyers may have subverted their client’s interest in order to help Chinese corporation Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. maintain control over a publicly traded company, Nam Tai Property Inc., Judge Adrian Jack of the Islands’ Commercial Court said.

That would be “a very grievous breach of the most fundamental imperatives of legal ethics,” Jack said. He sent the March 3 judgment to senior partners at the firms so that they could ...