Compliance & Regulation

A solicitor who “abandoned” his law firm, leaving his office “in a chaotic state” with piles of letters thrown away as a fire hazard by neighbouring tenant, has been struck off.

A poll of law firms has found almost complete opposition to the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s idea of preventing them from holding client money.

A solicitor who acted for lenders in conveyancing transactions without telling them he was also acting for himself and family members has been fined £12,500.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has fined a law firm over £20,000 for failing to comply with the SRA’s transparency rules and requirements to have a COLP and COFA.

City law firm Kingsley Napley has launched a strategic regulatory advice service for private equity firms and other investors eyeing up the UK and international legal market.

The SRA will ask next week whether it is ever right for solicitors to retain interest received on client account money, saying it is worried that some firms rely on it to stay solvent.

The leaders of the SRA yesterday refused to apologise to the profession about the Axiom Ince collapse as they dismissed the report criticising its actions as just opinion.

What went wrong with the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s supervision of Axiom Ince is “in many respects… history for us”, the regulator’s chair told the profession today.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has imposed conditions on the practice of SSB Group co-founder Jeremy Brooke while it continues its probe into what went wrong.

A solicitor who allowed an unadmitted “friend” to run a law firm of which he was nominee director and shareholder, has been suspended for two years.