Compliance & Regulation

The SFO has secured £1.1m from the sale of a house following the first unexplained wealth order, issued against the ex-wife of the solicitor behind the Axiom Legal Financing Fund fraud.

A managing partner who fabricated a client-care letter and backdated it has been suspended for 12 months, after an allegation of dishonesty was dropped.

The Lady Chief Justice has acknowledged that a minority of judges fail to behave with the professionalism and courtesy expected of them.

“Decisive and radical change” is needed at the Bar and the bench to reset a “culture of impunity” that allows those at the top to bully or harass others, the Harman review has concluded.

A solicitor who dishonestly made a minor amendment to an email when he forwarded it to a client – causing no harm to them or anyone else – has been suspended for a year.

The group that last year requisitioned a special general meeting of the Law Society has described plans to make it much harder to do so in future as “shocking”.

Proposed government changes to anti-money laundering rules around pooled client accounts could raise issues around client confidentiality and privilege, experts have warned.

A practising barrister has for the first time been added to HM Revenue & Customs’ list of tax avoidance promoters.

People who instruct barristers through the public access scheme are much more likely to be seeking advice than representation in court, new research has indicated.

A solicitor at a national law firm who deleted a client’s email from its document management system “to try to cover up that he had not dealt with it” has been struck off.