Compliance & Regulation

The London office of a leading US law firm is to face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over alleged failures of its anti-money laundering controls lasting several years.

A former law firm employee convicted of two assaults on colleagues in a nightclub after a work dinner has been given a conditional ban from the profession.

Barristers should be under a professional duty to actively promote anti-discriminatory attitudes and behaviours, it has been suggested. But this was not about requiring barristers to be ‘woke’.

Two solicitors convicted of failing to provide a specimen of breath for analysis after minor car accidents have been fined by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The slow creep of ABSs into the US is set to take a significant step forward next month when plans for a pilot are put to the supreme court of Washington state.

An assistant coroner overheard describing a barrister’s submission as “bollocks” and a judge who took 16 months to produce a ruling have been disciplined for misconduct.

Charging law firms fees of £250 per case to bring complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service could make volume complaints “unmanageable”, the Law Society has warned.

A property law firm in Manchester has been handed a fine of nearly £22,000 for failures in anti-money laundering procedures, towards the top end of the SRA’s powers.

A former board-level partner at a well-known law firm has been suspended for nine months for making inappropriate sexual advances to a colleague at a partners’ away weekend.

A deputy district judge has received a formal warning for misconduct over how he presented his financial situation in divorce proceedings.

A solicitor who has cost the profession more than £3.8m in payments from the SRA Compensation Fund to replace money that was taken from property clients has been struck off.

A solicitor who mistakenly transferred £10,000 of client money to his firm’s business account – and did not realise for six months – has been fined by the SRA.

The SRA is contacting a group of immigration and asylum solicitors whose training records did not provide “sufficient assurances” that they are maintaining their competence.

The Association of Costs Lawyers has backed the creation of a new membership category for non-costs lawyers, with launched a further consultation on describing them as ‘costs paralegals’.

A law firm in Essex is the latest to receive a hefty fine from the Solicitors Regulation Authority for not complying with anti-money laundering rules.