with Bruce McWilliam, he established his own law firm, Turnbull McWilliam. During 1986, Turnbull defended Peter Wright, a former MI5 official who wrote the book Spycatcher, successfully stopping the British government's attempts to suppress the book's publication in Australia. The case was widely reported, making Turnbull a public figure in Australia and the United Kingdom; Turnbull later wrote a book on the trial. In 1987, Turnbull established an investment banking firm, Whitlam Turnbull & Co Ltd, in partnership with Neville Wran, the former Labor Premier of New South Wales, and Nicholas Whitlam, the former Chief Executive of the State Bank of New South Wales and the son of former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Whitlam parted company with the firm in 1990; it operated as Turnbull & Partners Ltd until 1997. Turnbull left the firm he co-founded in 1997 to become a managing director of Goldman Sachs Australia, eventually becoming a partner in Goldman Sachs and Co. Additionally, he worked as a director of Star Technology Systems from 1993 to 1995. During this time Turnbull was also the chairman of Axiom Forest Resources, which conducted logging in the Solomon Islands under the trading name Silvania Forest Products. The latter's work was described by the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau as a "clear-felling operation", and the then Solomon Islands Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni reportedly threatened to close it down for "constant breaches of logging practices", according to a critical article in the Solomon Times. Turnbull purchased a stake in the internet service provider OzEmail in 1994 for $500,000. He sold this stake several months before the dot com bubble burst in 1999 for $57 million to then-telecommunications giant MCI Worldcom. In May 2002, Turnbull appeared before the HIH Insurance royal commission to be questioned on Goldman Sachs's involvement in the possible privatisation of one of the acquisitions of the collapsed insurance company. The Royal Commissioner's report made no adverse findings against him or Goldman Sachs, however, Turnbull was one of nine defendants who settled later litigation over the collapse in undisclosed payments, thought to be worth as much as $500m. Early political involvement In 1981, Turnbull stood for Liberal Party preselection in the Division of Wentworth prior to the 1981 Wentworth by-election. He was defeated by Peter Coleman, who went on to win the seat. In 1982, following his retirement from politics, former prime minister William McMahon nominated Turnbull as his