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Mr Sutherland is a bencher of the Middle Temple in London and an honorary bencher of the King’s Inns in Dublin. He practised at the Bar from 1969 to 1981, when he was appointed Attorney General of Ireland. He was also admitted to practise before the Supreme Court of the United States of America. In January 2008, he was appointed Chairman of the London School of Economics Court and Council In 1984, he was nominated by the Government of Ireland as a Commissioner of the European Communities. He was a Commissioner with responsibility for Competition Policy from 1985 until 1989. Subsequently, in 1992 he chaired the committee that reported to the European Commission on the functioning of the Internal Market (the Sutherland Report). In 1989, Mr Sutherland became chairman of Allied Irish Banks plc and joined the BP board in 1990. He relinquished these appointments in 1993 when he became director-general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). He was subsequently director-general of the World Trade Organisation until 1995. He is non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and is a non-executive director of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group. In 2007, he became a member of the advisory group to President Barroso, the President of the European Community, on energy and climate change issues. Mr Sutherland was awarded an honorary knighthood in 2004. | 