Prominent in-house counsel at AMP Brian Salter wrote about the importance of ensuring a "strong legal foundation" while instructing law firm Clayton Utz to make substantial changes to its "external and independent" report into AMP's "fee for no service" scandal.

This week's royal commission revealed AMP went through 25 drafts and exchanged more than 700 emails with Clayton Utz, before the report was submitted by the board to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as an "independent report".