City firm Ince & Co will attempt to get its name removed from the Burma Campaign’s ‘dirty list’ of companies that the pressure group claims are supporting the military regime in the country.

Burma Campaign UK named the law firm last week in the 2004 edition of its list, which is intended to pressurise businesses into severing their ties with the country.


It claimed that Ince & Co had been ‘active in facilitating trade and investment in Burma’ through its Singapore office.


But Steven Hazelwood, who was senior partner of Ince & Co’s Singapore office from 1996 to 2003, said the firm would write to the campaign in a bid to be taken off the list.


He said a reference to Burma contained in a brochure about its Singapore practice on its Web site was misleading about its activities.


‘We have no Burmese clients and no cases that involve the facilitation of investment in Burma,’ he said. ‘The point we will be trying to make to them [the campaign] is that, as a shipping firm, we have never shied away from going to the territorial seas that might be off countries that might be geographically, politically or climatically undesirable.’


Coming to the aid of clients whose vessels have been involved in a collision while in transit through such waters did not represent the facilitation of commercial investment in a country, he argued.


City firm Norton Rose was the only other law firm included on the list, while Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which appeared in a previous edition, successfully managed to remove its name.


The City giant told the campaign that although it acted for long-standing client Petronas, the Malaysian oil business, on an asset swap in Burma, this contract had completed in September 2003.


A Norton Rose spokesman said the firm was not involved in any matters in Burma and had never acted for the government or anyone associated with it. He added: ‘Once we understand the criteria, we will see whether it is appropriate that we are on the list or not.’