For weeks now, mystery has surrounded the relationship between law firm Mills Oakley and the alleged ‘fugitive’, ex-Emirati Anthony Brearley.

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Brearley, who was once a property partner at Baker & McKenzie in Australia, apparently took flight to the lucrative Middle Eastern shores of Dubai on the back of the property boom. He certainly isn’t the only Australian who shot through, looking for greener pastures in the UAE. But for Brearley, as well as many other ex-patriates, things came to a crashing holt with the emergence of the GFC, and all of a sudden the lure of a dash home to Australia emerged.

What made Brearley’s case unique, however, against the backdrop of a crashing property market and a likely desire to flee home, was the dark pall of a ‘property deal gone bad’. Like others wanting to make a getaway, no doubt the potential fallout of the deal intensified Brearley’s desire to skedaddle. He soon got on the phone to find a job back home.

On 2 July 2009, it was reported that Brearley had indeed found a job - at Mills Oakley lawyers. It is our understanding that Brearley was reported in the original version of this article (ALB has since scampered away from the original wording, we believe) as having been appointed a partner at Mills.

However, as reported by the Brisbane Times, scurrilous allegations emerged against Brearley in the period following that appointment:

Australian lawyer, Anthony Brearley, [is] believed to have left Dubai before a police investigation, thus avoiding jail. Well-placed sources last night confirmed that… Mr Brearley [has] been declared [a] “fugitive” in Dubai and will be tried in [his] absence.

When we subsequently couldn’t locate Brearley on the Mills Oakley website, we queried whether he was still employed by the firm. Did Mills Oakley abscond from the employment contract? His profile had gone AWOL!

Well, the mystery has finally been solved! Anthony Brearley has been named in the current edition of the Victorian Law Institute Journal as having been appointed ‘Special Counsel’ at Mills Oakley Lawyers.

We wish Anthony the best of luck as he embarks on this new chapter of his professional career.

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