It still makes Marcus Lee sick to the stomach. He had been languishing in a Dubai jail with his boss, another Australian property executive called Matt Joyce. Then came some hope. Alexander Downer, Australia’s longest serving foreign minister and by now a lobbyist, would contact the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates.

Downer’s letter in April 2009, however, pleaded only for Joyce. The case was controversial in Australia, Downer wrote, and it ‘‘might help ease the pressure’’ if Joyce was released on bail while he defended claims of property fraud. Downer made no mention of Lee.

‘‘Why then did he only lobby for one and not for us as well?’’ Marcus and Julie Lee ask in a statement. ‘‘School ties must run very deep at Geelong Grammar.”

Downer, like  Joyce, is a Geelong Grammar old boy. But Joyce was also Downer’s client. The Howard government minister confirms he was approached by a lawyer for Joyce in early 2009 and offered a success fee if he could help to get him freed on bail.

Downer is about to become Australia’s most senior diplomat, as its High Commissioner to London, but at the time he was at Bespoke Approach, the lobbying firm he has run with former federal Labor minister Nick Bolkus and ex-Liberal Party adviser Ian Smith, the husband of former Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja.

The success fee offered was $60,000, according to the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent, although Downer says he has no recollection.

‘‘It’s irrelevant,’’ he tells Fairfax Media. ‘‘I didn’t accept it. I didn’t send an invoice.’’

Downer chose, ultimately, that it would not have been ‘‘ethical’’ to take a fee on this job. He is glad that both Joyce and Lee are finally back in Australia, having defeated the charges against them after almost five years trapped in Dubai.

Still, isn’t the exposure of this episode embarrassing for Downer, given his new diplomatic posting?

‘‘It’s not an embarrassment,’’ he replies, ‘‘because I didn’t take any money, and I didn’t think it was right to. So I never sent them a bill ...  The premise of your question is whether you think earning money is embarrassing, which would demonstrate you don’t know anything about business.’’

Before Downer’s decision to forfeit that fee, his partner at Bespoke, Ian Smith, had made it clear that the Dubai job was indeed about business. In an email to lawyer Martin Amad, who at that point was representing both Joyce and Lee, Smith noted: ‘‘Alexander has more experience in dealing with foreign affairs matters than anyone and both during and post politics has assisted Australians in jeopardy overseas.

‘‘I recognise the client here is not a corporate or a person supported by a corporation, but given the number of requests we have for similar assistance around the world, we treat this matter commercially.’’

Amad had been pushing back on the success fee, suggesting Bespoke would need to demonstrate a ‘‘nexus’’ between Downer’s intervention and the timing of ‘‘my clients being released on bail’’. Amad meant both Joyce and Lee. In fact, he had been alarmed when he was alerted by the Department of Foreign Affairs’ consular operations director that Downer’s letter to the Crown Prince, General Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan,  ‘‘only refers to Mr Joyce’’.

He asked for clarification from Bespoke, which replied that it was unaware it was meant to be representing Lee, too. Downer insists he was never approached by anyone representing Lee.

The Lees, in any case, say they could never have afforded to pay for his help. Nevertheless, they say: ‘‘It made us feel ill when we were finally made aware that Mr Downer only lobbied for one ... even though he would have been very aware that there were two Australians languishing in a Middle East prison, not just one.

‘‘We would be stunned if he wasn’t aware of our situation as there were even stories running in the media that included Mr Downer, and mentioned two Australians, over a month before his contacts with UAE officials.’’

Another of Joyce’s co-accused, Angus Reed, also went to Geelong Grammar. So did Malcolm Fraser and Prince Charles, who also helped with the diplomatic campaign.

Lee has not spoken to Joyce since 2010. Lee’s legal team was keen to keep distance between their defence strategies.

Joyce, who had been managing director of the Dubai Waterfront development, was convicted on bribery charges in May last year and sentenced to 10 years’ jail and a $25 million fine, as Reed, who was tried in absentia. Dubai’s Court of Appeal acquitted Joyce in November.  Lee was acquitted in May and again in November when he beat a prosecution appeal.

Downer says former ministers do have to make a living. ‘‘It is not unethical ...  but I didn’t make a living out of this particular case.’’

He added: ‘‘It would be hugely unfair to say that for not taking money I was nevertheless accountable for taking money.’’

In any case, he agreed it would have been difficult to measure how much his intervention influenced the freeing of Joyce, who was released on bail in October 2009 – as was Lee.

‘‘Every success,’’ Downer says, ‘‘has a thousand fathers and every failure is an orphan – number one. Number two, I didn’t think [taking the success fee] would have been ethical, honestly.’’