Is it a million dollars or a million euros? asked the Lawyer. ‘Or a million pounds?’ asked the other Lawyer. ‘Is one million anything enough?’ said the CEO. ‘Maybe it should be 10 million?’

Three hours earlier it had all looked promising. I had organised a workshop to discuss a particularly difficult area of judgment that the company was trying to determine how to steer through the year end accounts. After several months of indecision I decided with the in-house lawyer that the only way to reach a decision was to hold an expert showdown. Both sets of legal advisers would be invited to the board room to field questions on the key issues and finally give an opinion on the probable outcome.