Though a specialist in telecommunications issues, gaming and sports law, Craig Fortunato has never received direct instructions from his father Charles - Gibraltar’s “Mister Telephones” who retired at the end of February after 33 years in the Rock’s communications industry.

“It is just the way that things have turned out,” Craig told B2B. “ We were always both very conscious that because of nepotism issues, the professional relationship I maintained with my father was certainly kept on a purely professional basis. So whenever my father would instruct a law firm I would have to prove my worth in the same way as any other lawyer.”

Craig, who this week was appointed as a partner in the local law firm Verralls worked for Norwich Union and Prescott insurance and as a paralegal at Hassans before gaining a law degree and working as a barrister in the firm where he specialized in telecommunications and financial services matters.

“I had a great grounding at Hassans - a marvelous training - but it is such a big firm that I decided to move somewhere smaller - somewhere I could do my own thing,” he says of his decision to switch to Verralls three years ago. “I had known John (Verrall) from his time at Hassans and welcomed the chance he gave me to spread my wings.”

Though he continues to work extensively in the financial sector and in the telecommunications field - advising on EU regulatory matters including competition and licensing issues - his own enthusiasm for sport encouraged him to work closely with BDO’s Stoy Hayward in the UK to try and bring a Gibraltar angle to a media-rights package for Premiership soccer players in Britain.