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The Treasury yesterday finally published an update on progress with the recommendations of the Insurance Fraud Taskforce, showing that the possibility of increasing the fining power of the Solicitors Regulation Authority remains on the agenda. Work is also being done on a model letter insurers can send to claimants to check they have instructed lawyers.

Lawyers are among those who could face prosecution if they fail to report information that could undermine UK financial sanctions, after a change to the law that came into force this week. “Independent legal professionals”, along with trust or company service providers, accountants and others are now captured by the European Union Financial Sanctions Regulations 2017.

A High Court judge has dismissed a negligence claim against London law firm Farrer & Co in a case involving a client with a $300m (£231m) trust fund. A companion of the man argued that the firm had owed her a duty of care in relation to a £5m gift that the trustees had agreed to pay her but then stopped.

The vice-president of the Court of Appeal’s criminal division has told a barrister who complained about a trial judge that she was over-sensitive and lacked an “understanding of the role of the judge in managing a jury trial”. Lady Justice Hallett said: “We do not expect counsel to behave or react in this way.”

A former City partner, struck off twice by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after challenging its first ruling at the High Court, has failed to overturn the second decision. Mrs Justice Carr said the end of Andrew Shaw’s career was a “professional tragedy” for him.

Judges have started coming out against the controversial flexible operating hours pilot, with one describing it as “the most retrograde step in terms of diversity in my memory”. The resident judge at Taunton Crown Court said “this experiment is misconceived”, and a deputy district judge questioned the impact on her colleagues.

A sole principal who failed in a rare challenge to an intervention in the High Court last year has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, and ordered to pay over £70,000 in costs. It found that her judgement had been “impaired” by the influence of a “significant client”, who was also a struck-off solicitor.

Two solicitors have agreed to leave the profession rather than face a strike-off or suspension, one for overcharging estates, the other for not disclosing to either the Solicitors Regulation Authority or Legal Ombudsman that attendance notes on a file had been backdated.

A solicitor who was originally cleared by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has now been fined £5,000 after the decision was overturned by the High Court. It is the latest case involving the Axiom Legal Financing Fund, where solicitors borrowed hundreds of thousands of pounds, ostensibly to fund disbursements in personal injury cases, but instead used the money for general practice funding.

The Mail on Sunday has been forced to publish a ruling highlighting its regulator’s serious concerns about the way it reported the conduct of a QC in a money laundering case. The newspaper was also criticised for misreporting the status of a related Solicitors Regulation Authority investigation.