SSB: Deliberate policy decisions
Two non-solicitor directors of SSB Group have been disqualified from working in the profession after the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) found they had been dishonest.
Wesley Bower and Steven Westwood were also found to have acted without integrity in being made subject to orders under section 99 of the Legal Services Act 2007.
The collapsed firm’s solicitor directors remain under investigation – four have had interim conditions placed on their practising certificates – but there has been no update on progress since February [1].
According to SRA notices published today, Mr Bower and Mr Westwood shared in the responsibility for policy decisions taken by SSB, alongside the “systematic failures” of the firm.
Both men had been with SSB’s predecessor firm since 2016 and, as it focused on personal injury work, were experienced in how the ‘no win, no fee’ model worked.
The regulator identified several categories of decisions that adversely affected clients – though not expressly stated in the notices, these will have been in cavity wall insulation claims.
First, SSB failed to obtain after-the-event (ATE) insurance in some supposed conditional fee cases where the firm was not in “a proper position” to cover adverse costs in the event these claim failed.
Second, some ATE policies it did obtain “largely fell short of being effective” by having too low a limit of indemnity, but clients were not told about this or the risk of becoming liable for the defendant’s costs.
Third, SSB failed to adhere to the terms of some of the ATE policies, meaning the insurers then failed to pay out; in some instances, SSB did not tell clients of adverse costs orders made against them.
Fourth, there were cases where SSB did not obtain client instruction about appeals; in at least one, SSB “actively went against the direct wishes of the client and proceeded to appeal”.
The client stood to gain nothing from this appeal – “the purpose of this, if successful, was to use a positive judgment to enable SSB to continue with claims on behalf of some of its other clients”.
In any event, the appeal failed and the client became liable for further adverse costs.
The result of these various failures was that clients faced adverse costs orders and some had charging orders placed on their homes, in one case to the value of £74,500.
The failures were all largely the result of deliberate policy decisions taken by SSB’s directors, the SRA stressed.
Another one was intentionally undervaluing some claims below £10,000 when they were worth more. The directors did this “to minimise the initial cost to SSB of issuing these claims with the court in order to relieve cash-flow issues that SSB was experiencing”.
This meant the court was purposely misled and court fees were underpaid, the regulator said.
The notices said it was apparent from 12 July 2022 – 18 months before it fell into administration – that SSB was “struggling with elements of its finances and that the funding model was not appropriate to guarantee the immediate future and financial stability of SSB”.
But neither Mr Bower nor Mr Westwood reported this to the SRA, as they were required to do.
Had they done so, “it is possible that the financial interests of clients and the reputation of the profession, could have been protected or at the least prevented from being made worse by the continued actions of SSB”.
In saying both should be disqualified, the SRA noted that their misconduct “also had a serious impact on the profession at large” given the publicity around SSB’s collapse.
Mr Bower and Mr Westwood have both been ordered to pay £14,224 in costs as well.