Compliance & Regulation

A partner who acted on what turned out to be a fraudulent Ponzi scheme has been fined £30,000 for accepting a role to protect the interest of the scheme’s bondholders.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has issued the first fixed fines to firms that failed to provide it with information about their anti-money laundering and sanctions controls.

A solicitor who created a “false and misleading” attendance note to show that she warned a client about the escalating level of costs has been suspended for two years.

A barrister who collapsed at a court while drunk and was taken to hospital in an ambulance has been fined £1,000 by the Bar Standards Board.

Three accident claims management companies – one of which is owned by a law firm – have been found in breach of the Advertising Standards Authority’s rules.

A solicitor’s breach of their regulatory obligations will only amount to misconduct if it is “sufficiently serious”, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

A solicitor accused of misleading her client and her firm about delays in registering lasting powers of attorney has been cleared, with her firm placing too much on her shoulders.

An MP has branded law firms that benefit from so-called ad-spoofing as “dishonest” and unethical, and called for action against them in a parliamentary debate last week.

The barrister whose £8m claim against high-profile tax lawyer Dan Neidle was ruled the first statutory SLAPP has been handed an interim suspension until September 2027.

Costs disputes between solicitors and their clients worth up to £50,000 should be dealt with by the Legal Ombudsman and not the courts, the Civil Justice Council has proposed.