Accountant’s reports safe from public exposure after FoI ruling


Law Society: FoI exemption applied

The Law Society’s freedom of information adjudicator has rejected a bid to open up public access to accountant’s reports submitted to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

The decision by Richard Eyre follows a member of the public’s bid to see a particular firm’s accounts, which was rejected by the Law Society and then sent on to adjudication.

The society argued that accounts should fall within section 14.5 of its freedom of information code, which entitles the regulator to withhold them because they are information which is “about specific investigations, disciplinary cases or applications arising from [its] regulatory role”.

In his adjudication, Mr Eyre said that not everything a firm submits to the SRA to satisfy the regulator’s duty of supervision must become a public document.

“There may be a public interest in all such information being generally available, but there may be a range of strong competing interests too – not least, in the case of financial information, commercial confidentiality,” he said, adding that commercial confidentiality cannot necessarily be protected merely by redacting personal data from published accounts.

Mr Eyre ruled: “It is the duty of the SRA to satisfy itself, from all the information it may obtain in an investigation or in the discharge of its wider regulatory responsibilities, that a firm is operating lawfully and in accordance with all regulatory requirements. That information clearly falls within section 14.5 of the code.

“There cannot be a general obligation to make all that information publicly available, and the public interest would not be well served by such an obligation. Nor, in this case, have I seen any particular reason to believe there would be a public interest in the accounts being published in this case.”




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Email address will not be published.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


Credit hire: The truth behind the headlines

Recent headlines about how the credit hire industry works speak volumes about how little is truly understood about this important element of the post-vehicle collision landscape.


Choosing a reporting accountant

It would be beneficial for numerous reasons if the SRA considered providing certain reporting accountants with an accreditation or quality mark.


Jeff Zindani

Blinded by the light: Can law firms survive the PE gold rush?

In a legal market where tradition collides with transformation, law firms of every size and stripe are being approached almost daily by private equity houses.


Loading animation
loading