Compliance & Regulation

A Southend law firm that failed to comply with anti-money laundering rules for more than 15 years has been fined £120,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

A solicitor who allowed his firm’s client account to facilitate a suspicious £1.1m property transaction 20 months after it had closed has been struck off.

The Bar Standards Board has ditched its controversial proposal to require barristers to “act in a way that advances equality, diversity and inclusion”.

A high-profile Birmingham solicitor, dubbed the ‘TikTok lawyer’ for his activity on the social media network, has been charged with money laundering offences.

The High Court has rejected claims of bias against the chair of a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal panel made as part of long-running proceedings against a major City law firm.

A veteran solicitor who used the existence of his first bankruptcy in 1993 to “camouflage the existence” and the need to report his second in 2014 has been struck off.

The solicitor for former Conservative MP Nadeem Zahawi either “ignored or dismissed his regulatory responsibilities” in trying to stop publication of an email he sent, the SDT has decided.

The High Court has refused to extend time for a former solicitor to appeal against being struck off in 2017 and in any event struck out the grounds for citing 25 non-existent cases.

A barrister acted within professional boundaries in arguing that comparing Israel with Nazi Germany was not inherently antisemitic, the High Court has ruled – although his client’s tweets doing so were.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has imposed its largest-ever fine, just shy of £4m, on the former non-solicitor owner of collapsed law firm Kingly Solicitors.