David Mills (lawyer)
| David Mills | |
|---|---|
| Born |
David Mackenzie Mills 1944 (age 72–73) |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Spouse(s) | Tessa Jowell (m. 1979) |
David Mackenzie Mills (born 1944) is a British corporate lawyer who specialises in international work for Italian companies. He was accused of money-laundering and alleged tax fraud, involving Silvio Berlusconi, he was convicted in first instance and in appeal, but the conviction was quashed by the Supreme Court of Cassation. He has been married to the Labour Party politician Tessa Jowell since 1979. Although they separated in 2006, they had effectively reunited by 2012.
According to The Independent, his father Kenneth Mills, was a senior spy. At the end of World War II, Kenneth Mills was running MI5's operations from Gibraltar. Later, he was transferred to Jamaica and—according to a family legend—personally foiled an attempted revolution in Cuba.
His brother is businessman John Mills, founder of JML Direct. Mills was privately educated, and then went to University College, Oxford, qualifying as a barrister in 1968.
David Mills was a barrister who became a commercial solicitor in the 1980s. He is a former Labour councillor in the London borough of Camden, and like others involved in the London Labour party of the 1980s is close to the Blairite group of politicians and left-leaning celebrities, to which his second wife belongs. Mills founded the niche private client law firm MacKenzie Mills which merged with Withers Worldwide in 1995.
Mills acted for Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the early 1990s. This has been the cause of controversy and of allegations. David Mills was involved in setting up a large number of offshore trusts for the "B Operation" as he termed Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi's operations. Mills was investigated in Italy for money-laundering and alleged tax fraud and on 10 March 2006 prosecutors in Milan asked a judge to order Mills and Berlusconi to stand trial on corruption charges. Prosecutors submitted 15,000 pages of documents to the preliminary hearing judge who will determine whether the case should go to full trial.
...
Wikipedia