SSB: Investigation completed
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has completed its investigation into the collapse of SSB Law and issued disciplinary notices to “a number of individuals”.
In an update published this week, it said these individuals – including two non-solicitors – would now be given the opportunity to respond to the allegations, after which a decision-maker will determine the next steps, such as no further action, an internal sanction or referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal
“While it is difficult to set out an exact timeline for this process, we are aiming to make decisions before the summer… We plan to issue more notices to other individuals in due course.”
We reported last November that the SRA had placed interim conditions on the practising certificate of Jeremy Brooke, SSB’s chief executive and co-founder (the ‘B’ of SSB, originally Simpson Sissons & Brooke).
These mean he cannot be a compliance officer, owner or manager of any SRA-regulated law firms, and cannot “carry on legal activities or supervise others carrying on legal activities in connection with the provision of litigation or any claims work involving conditional fee agreements or damages-based agreements”.
These same conditions were subsequently placed on three other solicitors who were at SSB: director Debra Allen; Lucy Flynn, who headed the Japanese Knotweed department; and David Toyn, who led the team dealing with mis-sold investment schemes.
The three have an extra condition that says they can only handle litigation or any claims work as an employee, where that employment has first been approved by the SRA.
These conditions will be in place until the outcome of any disciplinary action.
Last summer, the SSB scandal grew to encompass another collapsed claims firm, Pure Legal. Its cavity wall insulation cases and some mortgage mis-selling cases were transferred to SSB.
The focus of SSB fall-out has been the after-the-event insurance on cavity wall claims being repudiated, leading to successful defendants and their insurers seeking to enforce substantial costs awards against clients.
This week’s update said it was “nearing the completion of a detailed review of relevant client files” at Pure Legal, which it hoped would be by the summer. Interim conditions and possibly regulatory action may then follow.
In the meantime, the SRA itself is waiting for the outcome of the investigation commissioned by the Legal Services Board into its own conduct in relation to SSB.
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