Case Digest: ERLINDA K. ILUSORIO-BILDNER v. ATTY. LUIS K. LOKIN, JR., et al.

ERLINDA K. ILUSORIO-BILDNER v. ATTY. LUIS K. LOKIN, JR., et al.

477 SCRA 634 (2005)

A lawyer is prohibited from representing an interest contrary to that earlier espoused by his firm.

Erlinda K. Ilusorio-Bildner filed a disbarment complaint against Atty. Luis Lokin, Jr.. This sprung from the time that her father, the late Potenciano Ilusorio, engaged the services of the law office of Lokin to represent him in the Sandiganbayan where the Republic was claiming, among other properties, shareholdings in Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (POTC) and Philippine Communications Satellite Corporation (PHILCOMSAT).

Ilusorio, with the assistance of Lokin, entered into a Compromise Agreement where Ilusorio was to get 673 POTC shares. Ilusorio-Bildner alleges that the informal gathering, through the “high-handed and deceitful maneuvers” of Lokin, was suddenly and without notice transformed into a Special Stockholders Meeting at which directors and officers of PHILCOMSAT were elected. Her father contested the validity of the meeting by filing before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Manuel Nieto, et al. who were purportedly elected directors and officers of PHILCOMSAT, in which SEC case Lokin appeared as the counsel of Nieto, et al., contrary to his oath not to represent conflicting interests.

Ilusorio, had earlier filed with the IBP a disbarment complaint. However, on account of the death of Ilusorio, his complaint was dismissed without prejudice to the filing of a new complaint by Ilusorio’s children. Ilusorio-Bildner now filed the complaint but the IBP Board of Governors dismissed it. No copy of the notice of resolution was served upon petitioner. Ilusorio-Bildner, nonetheless, learned about the matter.

ISSUE:

Whether or not Lokin was personally barred by the rules of ethics from representing an interest contrary to that earlier espoused by his firm

HELD:

Notwithstanding his acknowledged involvement in both the Sandiganbayan and SEC cases, respondent denies that he was guilty of representing conflicting interests, he proffering that, in the first place, the case of Ilusorio in the Sandiganbayan “has been the personal account of Atty. Raval, separate and apart from the accounts of the law partnership.” Not only is this claim unsubstantiated, however. It is contradicted by respondent’s own evidence and statements.

As earlier noted, respondent has stated that Ilusorio was represented by his firm in the Sandiganbayan case. In light thereof, respondent was personally barred by the rules of ethics from representing an interest contrary to that earlier espoused by his firm.

Plainly, when Lokin represented Nieto, et al. in the SEC, he was advocating an interest hostile to the implementation of the same Compromise Agreement that he had priorly negotiated for Ilusorio.

The Board thus erred when, while acknowledging that Ilusorio was represented by respondent’s firm in his negotiations with the PCGG, it nonetheless maintained that there was no conflict of interest upon a finding that the subsequent SEC case “did not in any way involve the validity of the compromise agreement forged with the PCGG.”