Compliance & Regulation

There has been a significant increase in the number of complaints about the conduct of barristers outside of practice, it has emerged, as the implications of the Beckwith ruling continue to reverberate.

A leading conveyancer has expressed his shock after a fraudster was able to transfer money from his firm’s client account at one of his bank’s branches, despite having put safeguards in place to prevent it.

Two criminal law solicitors who billed the victim of an attack by a psychiatric patient a total of £20,000 for what they described as “administrative services” have been fined by a tribunal.

The High Court has overturned the decision that former Freshfields partner Ryan Beckwith breached the SRA code of conduct by having drunken sex with a junior lawyer at the firm.

There is a difference between many law firms’ anti-money laundering policies and procedures, and what actually happens in practice, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has found.

Two partners who saw more than £100m pass through their firm’s client account for a car parking and storage pod investment scheme have been fined for misconduct.

Dubious investment schemes involving solicitors are becoming “far more sophisticated” and leading to a “huge number of claims” on the Compensation Fund, the SRA has warned.

A senior government barrister, who was one of the first people convicted of ‘upskirting’, has been banned from returning to practice for six months after he completes his sentence.

The quality of one of the two main kinds of anti-money laundering reports made by solicitors has got significantly worse, a senior manager at the National Crime Agency said yesterday.

A solicitor whose conduct of several property transactions has triggered multi-million-pound negligence claims against his former firm has now been struck off.