Did Paul Wolfowitz lose his job as president of The World Bank Group because he didn’t listen to its top lawyer? Roberto Da�ino, the bank’s former general counsel, thinks so.
Da�ino says that Wolfowitz prevented him from reviewing an employment contract for the president’s girlfriend that was more lavish than what the bank’s ethics committee had actually approved. Had he seen the contract, Da�ino says, he would have sent it back for revision, and Wolfowitz might have held onto his job.”I tell my children all the time: When you make a mistake, it’s not so much the mistake you make [that counts], but how you react to your mistake,” Da�ino says. “If [Wolfowitz] had reacted different than what he did, this would have blown away.” Da�ino spoke with Corporate Counsel this week in his first media interview since leaving the World Bank in January 2006.
