SRA: Conduct raised obvious risk factors
A partner at leading fee-share firm gunnercooke has been fined £14,000 for using the practice’s client account as a banking facility.
Paul Corren requested and authorised the firm to receive £951,945 and make payments totalling £578,233 over 18 months on behalf of four clients.
A regulatory settlement agreement issued this week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said there was “no evidence that the regulated services provided by the firm had any meaningful connection with the receipts received into and the payments made from the client account”.
Mr Corren admitted failing to uphold public trust and breaching rule 3.3 of the SRA accounts rules.
The SRA said: “Allowing a client account to be used as a banking facility, when there were no underlying legal transactions carries with it significant risks, such as the account being used for money laundering.
“The client account usage, as a banking facility, continued over a sustained period for four different clients and this therefore formed part of a pattern of misconduct.”
The SRA acknowledged that this was “not the type of breach giving rise to real risks of direct loss to clients”, but the size and volume of the transactions “raised obvious risk factors”.
Applying its fining guidance led to a penalty “towards the middle” of the penalty bracket of between 16% and 49% of Mr Corren’s gross annual income.
With a 10% deduction reflecting his co-operation with the investigation, the SRA imposed a fine of £14,116. He also agreed to pay costs of £1,350.
A gunnercooke spokeswoman said: ““We can confirm that, following a recent SRA investigation, Paul Corren, a gunnercooke partner, was fined. No finding was made against this firm.
“We confirm that we implemented changes to our internal processes prior to this investigation being commenced, which increased the controls relating to payments into and out of client account. We are confident our procedures are fully compliant with the Solicitors Accounts Rules.”
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