Compliance & Regulation

A law firm owner who used client money to shore up his firm and pay personal debts in the face of cash flow problems has been struck off.

In-house lawyers considering whistleblowing have been advised by the Law Society to “disclose specific information with factual content, not suspicions or unfounded allegations”.

A solicitor found to have been fundamentally dishonest in a personal injury claim has been cleared of dishonesty by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The government’s decision to rationalise the oversight of AML supervision could be a precursor to the entirety of legal regulation, a leading practitioner has suggested.

Regulators should assure non-authorised people who may have inadvertently conducted litigation as found by Mazur that they will not face criminal prosecution or disciplinary action.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has removed restrictions on a solicitor who, after being suspended for three years, became a compliance consultant.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has not kicked changes to client account – and the interest solicitors earn on it – into the long grass, its chair warned solicitors yesterday.

Regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority for anti-money laundering will feel “very different” for law firms, the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s chief executive has predicted.

The chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority said yesterday that he did consider resigning in the wake of the report on SSB Law but decided that “it wasn’t the right thing”.

The Mazur ruling likely came about because the Legal Services Act 2007 inadvertently failed to codify what had been custom in the legal profession for a long time, two experts have argued.