SDT: Costs order unfulfilled
A struck-off solicitor who admitted he had not paid the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) nearly £65,000 in outstanding costs from his disciplinary hearing cannot return to the roll, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has ruled.
The SDT’s guidance is that, save in the most exceptional circumstances, an application for restoration within six years of the original strike off is likely to be regarded as premature – and it concluded that this was the case here.
Charles James Ete was struck off in June 2021 after a tribunal found that his “wholly inadequate” compliance systems led him to being duped by two bogus clients and by a bogus solicitor into paying sale proceeds of over £1.2m to third parties.
Mr Ete, admitted in 1997, was the sole equity partner and owner of two law London law firms – Charles Ete & Co in Barking and Pride Solicitors in Ilford, both shut down by the SRA in 2019.
He was found to have acted with a lack of integrity in failing to question instructions which should have aroused his suspicions, paying the sales proceeds to unrelated third parties and failing to verify the identity of the person requesting the payments.
The solicitor had acted dishonestly in telling his indemnity insurer that he was unaware of circumstances likely to give rise to claims when he had been told six days earlier that one of the property transactions may have been fraudulent and it had been reported to the SRA, the buyer’s solicitors’ insurer and the police.
Mr Ete was struck off and ordered to pay costs of £64,260. He appealed to the High Court, but Mr Justice Linden rejected the appeal in 2022, saying that although he had “some sympathy” with Mr Ete, he could not see “any basis” for holding that the SDT’s findings were wrong.
In his application to the tribunal for restoration to the roll, counsel for Mr Ete argued that the dishonesty finding “concerned a single act, committed on one occasion, and did not result in any financial loss to the insurer”.
He said Mr Ete “fully accepted the tribunal’s determination and bitterly regrets his conduct in the insurance matter”.
There was no prospect of the misconduct being repeated because Mr Ete would not be returning to a role involving the handling of client funds – his proposed area of practice involved legally aided family law work.
Mr Ete told the tribunal in his oral evidence that he was “involved in his church and regularly offered legal advice to members of the congregation when requested to do”.
He had an offer of employment from Blackwhite Solicitors if he was restored to the roll. The firm did not hold client money or operate a client account.
The SDT ruled that the relevant period for determining whether Mr Ete’s application for restoration was premature was not, as the solicitor argued, from when his practising certificate was suspended in January 2019, nor was it, as the SRA contested, from conclusion of the High Court appeal in August 2022.
Instead, the period began when he was struck off and the circumstances were not exceptional such as to disregard the guidance about the passage of six years.
There was “no evidence of any, let alone substantial or satisfactory, employment within the legal profession… demonstrating that trust and confidence had been placed” in Mr Ete since he was struck off, and no evidence of legal work carried out for parishioners at his church.
There was limited evidence of training, and “some evidence” of insight, butthe SDT was “concerned regarding his lack of curiosity in understanding and explaining the shortfall on his firm’s client account”.
Repaying losses caused to others by the misconduct, including fines and costs issued by the SDT, were another factor to take into account and Mr Ete he had made no repayments of his £64,260 costs bill.
The SDT said the reference provided from Blackwhite Solicitors did not “confirm definitively” that a job offer had been made and was “silent on details of his purported role”.
The tribunal refused Mr Ete’s application and ordered him to pay costs of £3,000.
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