Regulation

The government has issued a wide-ranging response to criticisms of whether its plan to ban cold-calling will be effective, saying that making the Financial Conduct Authority responsible for it would risk “confusing consumers and industry”.

A solicitor who agreed with the Solicitors Regulation Authority that he would be struck off for his role in dubious investment schemes involving carbon credits has ended up being suspended for a year after a tribunal decided that the sanction was not justified.

Personal injury lawyers, conveyancers and other solicitors who arrange or advise on insurance policies have been given a stay of execution from complying with new rules under a European directive that was due to come into force last Friday.

Another solicitor has been struck off for his involvement in the Axiom Legal Financing Fund, while his junior partner has been suspended indefinitely after a tribunal found that he had bullied her. The firm borrowed just shy of £6m, but its total liability to the fund was more than £10m, none of which has apparently been repaid.

Struck-off solicitor Phil Shiner has had his bankruptcy extended by five years after he gifted away nearly £500,000 worth of assets to family members before declaring himself bankrupt and was unable to pay £6.5m back to his creditors. The Official Receiver is now in the process of selling his house.

The Bar Standards Board has backtracked on many of the elements of its plan to force barristers to publish prices and service information – most notably by suggesting that instead of putting hourly rates on their websites, chambers should simply have to tell potential clients to contact them for a quote.

An experienced private client lawyer who forged a grant of probate has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He was acting for the estate of a woman who had lacked mental capacity and had two disabled sons living in care.

It is “beyond argument” that a solicitor sentenced to any substantial term of imprisonment should be struck off, the president of the Queen’s Bench Division said yesterday as the High Court increased an indefinite suspension imposed on a former senior Crown prosecutor convicted of the attempted murder of his wife to a strike-off.

If the Legal Services Board is serious about promoting access to justice it must end its silence on the legal aid cuts, lawyers’ organisations have said. The Bar Council accused the oversight regulator of acting like “another department of government” by refusing to comment.

A partner in a South Yorkshire law firm who failed to disclose on the financial statement for his own divorce proceedings ownership of a second property has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He falsely stated that the proceeds of sale of the building had been invested in a failed property venture.