Interest: Solicitor loaned client money at 8%
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has rejected an appeal by a solicitor against a fine of £7,500 imposed on him by a Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) adjudication panel, describing it as having no merit.
James Prusram Ramdhun was ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of over £16,500 for the appeal, to add to £1,350 in costs the panel ordered him to pay.
We reported last month that he was fined for paying away £37,500 from the proceeds of a property sale in breach of an undertaking and then loaning the client the money to make up the shortfall.
The owner, manager and compliance officer for legal practice at South London firm Clapham Law, he charged the client interest at 8%.
In his grounds of appeal, the solicitor argued that the adjudication panel had “failed to consider properly or at all the purpose and intention of the undertaking and the underlying circumstances”.
The undertaking lacked “all the necessary terms and conditions to make it binding” and “could not have been valid”.
He contended that the money provided to the client was described as “help for a desperate client, with no formal loan agreement beyond a simple note” and the SRA did not explain how Mr Ramdhun acted against his client’s best interests.
Such appeals are a review of the SRA decision, not a rehearing, and the appellant has to demonstrate that the decision was wrong or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings.
In dismissing the appeal, the SDT did not delve into the details, saying simply that Mr Ramdhun “had not demonstrated any basis for disturbing the original decision under the applicable legal principles and he had not presented the tribunal with any cogent reasons to satisfy the test set out above”.
The SRA argued that its costs of £16,555 reflected the “significant amount of paperwork and the range of arguments raised in the case”, and should be paid in full because there was “absolutely no merit” in the appeal.
The SDT found the costs to be reasonable and proportionate. There was “no merit” in the solicitor’s case and it was “right” that the SRA should recover its costs in full.
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