Partner fined for using firm’s accounts as bank


SRA: Own fining powers sufficient

A partner who used his law firm’s office and client accounts as personal banking facilities has been fined £2,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

Iqbal Singh Sekhon, at the time a partner at Bradford firm Sekhon & Firth, received the maximum fine the SRA can issue without sending him to a disciplinary tribunal after the pair reached a regulatory settlement agreement.

Mr Sekhon, who qualified in 1999, had a third party pay £400,000 into the firm’s office account back in 2009. The money was “in partial satisfaction of a liability owed” by ‘Person A’ to the solicitor.

Neither the third party nor Person A were clients of the firm at the time of, or in relation, to the payment, and Mr Sekhon admitted that the liability was “in respect of matters which did not form the basis of the solicitor/client relationship or instruction”.

Mr Sekhon then transferred the money into the firm’s client account and made smaller payments out from it to settle his own personal liabilities

The solicitor admitted paying money into client account without any instructions or underlying transaction, in breach of the accounts rules.

The SRA said the maximum financial penalty was “the appropriate outcome” because Mr Sekhon was no longer practising as a partner with control of a client account, he co-operated with the SRA’s investigation, and the breach was serious but “protection of the public/public interest in this case does not require a greater sanction than the SRA is able to impose”.

Mr Sekhon will also pay SRA costs of £12,450.

In another regulatory settlement agreement, the SRA has rebuked Rhiannon Jade Compton, a solicitor at north Wales firm Bennett Smith, after she pleaded guilty to drink-driving.

A court disqualified her from driving for a year and fined her £280.




Leave a Comment

By clicking Submit you consent to Legal Futures storing your personal data and confirm you have read our Privacy Policy and section 5 of our Terms & Conditions which deals with user-generated content. All comments will be moderated before posting.

Required fields are marked *
Email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog


Bulk litigation – not always working in consumers interests

For consumers to get the benefit, bulk litigation needs to be done well, and we are increasingly concerned that there are significant problems in some areas of this market.


ABSs, cost and audits – fixing regulation after Axiom Ince

A feature of law firm collapses and frauds has sometimes been the over-concentration of power in outdated and overburdened systems of control.


The new sexual harassment law: first among equals?

If there is a case for enhancing compensation for sexual harassment cases, then surely there is an equally strong case for enhancing compensation for other forms of harassment?


Loading animation