Compliance & Regulation

A law firm that did not have sufficient anti-money laundering controls in place for nearly six years has been fined £16,000 for its failures.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal yesterday upheld allegations that a solicitor published antisemitic and offensive posts on social media and also abused SRA staff.

Only the biggest and smallest legal regulators – the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Costs Lawyer Standards Board – have ‘passed’ their annual performance assessments by the Legal Services Board.

The Home Office has rejected changes proposed by the Law Commission almost five years ago, which would have introduced statutory guidance on the suspicious activity reports.

Ministers have asked the Legal Services Board to outline how it plans to approach the regulation of artificial intelligence in the sector by the end of April.

An experienced solicitor has been fined more than £10,000 for taking payments from a client into his own bank account after striking an agreement with the SRA.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has approved a certification scheme which it says will provide law firms, chambers and others with “certainty” when processing personal data.

Reforms to the way legal services are regulated north of the border, including the introduction of alternative business structures with majority non-lawyer ownership, moved a step closer last week.

The “lack of energy” from legal regulators to deal with what appears to be strategic failures of regulation is becoming “mildly ridiculous”, the chief executive of the LSB has argued.

Solicitors are still engaging in dubious practices around non-disclosure agreements and strategic lawsuits against public participation, despite regulatory warnings, it was claimed last week.

There is a “higher level of confidence” among law firm buyers and “clear signs that the scale and pace” of M&A will increase in 2024, a report has found.

Members of the public may “reasonably question” the ‘wait and see’ approach of the SRA to disciplinary action in the Post Office scandal, a regulatory expert and former SRA manager has said.

The SRA is going ahead with plans to introduce the same system of fee caps for law firms handling financial services mis-selling claims as the Financial Conduct Authority has for CMCs.

A law firm administrator who paid herself £1,450 using pre-signed cheques, which she claimed was to refund money she had spent on office tea and coffee, has been barred from the profession.

A barrister has been suspended for six months after being convicted for what a tribunal described as “a sustained, angry and violent physical assault” which was “clearly the result of heavy drinking”.