Compliance & Regulation

It is likely that criminals launder “hundreds of millions” of pounds with the inadvertent aid of conveyancers across the UK, the government has warned. London litigation firms are also being targeted.

The High Court has rejected an appeal from a solicitor struck off for persuading a vulnerable client to pay £4,700 into her personal bank account.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has failed in its bid to sell two properties to recoup £354,000 of the costs of intervening in a solicitor’s practice.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority will not appeal the High Court decision in the Ryan Beckwith case, stressing that the ruling was confined to its facts.

The Law Society of Scotland has criticised the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s call for the government not to exempt small law firms from paying the proposed economic crime levy.

A solicitor who allowed her struck-off partner to continue his involvement in their practice, and failed to obtain client consent before transferring matters to an unregulated firm, has been fined £2,000.

Small law firms should not be exempt from the economic crime levy the government wants to introduce to help tackle money laundering, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said.

One of the leading figures in legal education has hailed the introduction next year of the SQE as a “revolution”, with another saying it will break down the barriers between academia and the profession.

A solicitor who failed in his “basic duties” around anti-money laundering has been fined £2,000 – rather than up to £50,000 his misconduct deserved – because he has agreed to leave the profession.

Men and solicitors from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds continue to feature disproportionately in the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s enforcement work, new figures have shown.

A solicitor who lied when she told her new employer that she was not under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority has been struck off.

A solicitor has been struck off for selling his firm’s letterhead to a company for use in compensation claims for £10 a letter where the claim was successful, along with improper transfers from client account.

There is no “significant risk” that a senior partner who did a Ku Klux Klan impersonation at his Black secretary and repeatedly groped her bottom will repeat his behaviour, the SDT has decided.

An alternative business structure that failed to carry out sufficient identity checks on conveyancing transactions has been fined £14,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The managing director of a law firm who ordered legal secretaries and a trainee solicitor to retrospectively “witness” wills which had already been signed by clients has been struck off.