We have covered the bizarre saga of Jones Day and the request for recusal from two privacy advocacy organizations this week. Today’s episode finds that two commissioners, not one, have ties to Jones Day by virtue of their wedding vows.

John Majoras, husband of Deborah, and Kathryn Fenton, wife of Kovacic, both hold non-equity partnership status at Jones Day. In today’s joint FTC commissioner statement, both Deborah Majoras and Kovacic cited that status of their spouses as why they will not recuse themselves.

The Center for Digital Democracy and the Electronic Privacy Information Center responded to the FTC announcement with a joint statement. In that statement, the two groups noted Majoras’ attestation that since January 1, 2006, procedures have been in place to note whether Jones Day is involved with a party or a third party with business before the FTC.

By Majoras’ reckoning, she only became aware of Jones Day and DoubleClick being involved together on December 11, 2007. However, CDD and EPIC noted, based on Jones Day’s website documents, the relationship with DoubleClick began on or before November 9th, 2007.

We can go this example one better. Jones Day was certainly aware of DoubleClick in May 2000, when the firm’s Robert Hamilton and Jennifer Gehrlein wrote a Technology Commentary on DoubleClick and privacy.

The document does not state whether or not Jones Day had a formal relationship with DoubleClick at that time. We mention this only to note that Jones Day has purged this well-written document from their website, as well as mentions of DoubleClick as a client in their representation lists, and in the biographies of five attorneys who had been listed as DoubleClick counsel.

But the oddest part of the DoubleClick, Jones Day, and FTC story comes from DoubleClick itself. A DoubleClick spokesperson contacted WebProNews by email, and subsequently other media outlets, to tell us "Jones Day has been engaged primarily with respect to European and other non-U.S. jurisdictions."

The statement further averred that Jones Day has never appeared before the FTC on DoubleClick’s behalf. That’s a specific statement, and does not address what Jones Day itself said it has done for the company: "Antitrust counsel in the $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick by Google Inc."

Two DC attorneys, two in Brussels, one in Sydney, all with the same statement, one that Jones Day has fully removed from its website.

The contradictory statements coming from the FTC’s spokespersons, two of whom told two separate media outlets they knew Jones Day represented DoubleClick before the European Commission, and the statements by Deborah Majoras and Kovacic about refusing to recuse themselves from a case where the firm in question would have the casual web searcher believe does not have DoubleClick among their clientele, make little sense.

It’s like catching little kids who look guilty about something, but no one’s sure exactly what they have done, and they all have different stories. Yet we would be the ones to get in trouble if we paddled the truth out of the little darlings.

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Hours after we reported Jones Day purged DoubleClick references from its website, the CDD and EPIC submitted a letter to Federal Trade Commission secretary Donald Clark requesting all of the information they have regarding Jones Day and its relationship with DoubleClick.

Two separate FTC spokespersons told CNet and MediaPost that Jones Day would represent DoubleClick before the European Commission regarding the ad network’s potential acquisition by Google. They had not heard of Jones Day representing DoubleClick before the FTC.

It appears the firm at one point had been advising DoubleClick on both the international and US aspects of antitrust law. A now-removed document from the Jones Day site indicated their relationship began on or before November 9th.

EPIC and CDD helpfully attached the Google cache of the relevant jonesday.com page presenting this summary. When we reviewed the current Jones Day site’s list of clients, and the five attorneys who had been listed as representing DoubleClick, all DoubleClick related references had been removed from the site.

Again, cached versions of each page showed the DoubleClick references in place. The FOIA request filed today asked the FTC to produce all records concerning Jones Day as related to the Google and DoubleClick deal, as well as "any other matter involving Jones Day and the investigation of consumer privacy complaints or the enforcement of consumer privacy law at the Commission."

To make matters even more interesting, a DoubleClick spokesperson told WebProNews today, "Jones Day has been engaged primarily with respect to European and other non-U.S. jurisdictions."

If that is the case, why would the prestigious Jones Day firm remove DoubleClick references from its list of clients and its attorneys’ bios?

This all started when CDD and EPIC asked FTC chair Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself after Jones Day’s involvement in DoubleClick’s affairs became known. Her husband, John Majoras, is a partner at Jones Day. Who knows where this may end?

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In their motion for disqualification of Deborah Platt Majoras, the Center for Digital Democracy and the Electronic Privacy Information Center cited a newly discovered fact about the case. Majoras’ husband, John Majoras, works for a law firm retained by DoubleClick.

John Majoras is not listed as one of the five attorneys DC law firm Jones Day has advising DoubleClick on antitrust issues. However, searching the Jones Day site, and Google, shows references to DoubleClick no longer appear on the firm’s website.

A query through the Jones Day site search displayed this item as one of four results:

3. Jones Day - Services - Antitrust Mergers/Joint Ventures - Experience
…DTE Energy Company. DoubleClick Inc. Acquisition by DoubleClick Antitrust counsel in the $3.1 billion acquisition…in the $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick by Google Inc. H&R… http://www.jonesday.com/services/services_experience.aspx?
AdvancedServices=7deaa765-88f7-4368-8db7-443695819af3
12/7/2007 1:10:31 AM

Click the link, and DoubleClick does not appear in the resulting list. We expect this could be a simple administrative oversight, and look forward to hearing it has been corrected.

But the Jones Day webmaster will have more work to do. For one thing, this link should lead directly to a summary of Jones Day’s experience with DoubleClick. It’s blank, but you can see it in the CDD/EPIC motion.

We checked each of the five attorneys’ profiles on the site. EPIC and CDD listed Joe Sims, Thomas Jestaedt, Alexandre G. Verheyden, Michael S. McFalls, and Chris Ahern as the legal eagles providing counsel.

Each of those attorneys once had this listed in their Professional Biography – Experience:

DoubleClick Inc.
Acquisition by DoubleClick
Antitrust counsel in the $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick by Google Inc.

In each case, that reference has been scrubbed from the Jones Day site. One would imagine an attorney would want to tout being part of a multi-billion-dollar deal involving one of the biggest name brand companies on the planet.

Not at Jones Day, though.

(UPDATE: A DoubleClick representative responded to this story via email: "Simpson Thacher has been DoubleClick’s outside counsel since July of 2005 and was retained to represent it in all aspects of its proposed acquisition by Google, including with respect to United States antitrust matters.  From the outset, Simpson Thacher has represented DoubleClick before the Federal Trade Commission and continues in that capacity. Jones Day has been engaged primarily with respect to European and other non-U.S. jurisdictions.  Jones Day was not engaged to represent, and has not represented DoubleClick before the Federal Trade Commission or appeared before the Commission on DoubleClick’s behalf.")

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