Compliance & Regulation

The Legal Services Board has approved the big hike in contributions solicitors and firms have to make to the Compensation Fund just in time for the SRA to collect them.

The number of reports to the BSB about barristers’ use of social media has unexpectedly fallen but an increasing proportion relate to “controversial social and political issues”.

The Bar Standards Board’s controversial proposal for new equality rules will not affect the cab-rank rule and will not lead to quotas, its director general said yesterday.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s needs to rethink the “potentially unlawful, confusing and flawed” proposals to update its fining regime, the Law Society said yesterday.

A solicitor who held all the compliance roles at an alternative business structure owned by a non-lawyer has been rebuked for multiple failures under his watch.

Former justice minister Lord Wolfson KC has joined the voices opposing the Bar Standards Board’s plan to impose a new positive duty on barristers to act in a way that “advances” EDI.

A solicitor who sent overly aggressive and legally inaccurate letters before action as part of a campaign against the Covid vaccine has been fined £15,000.

A solicitor who paid out money he was holding, having given an undertaking not to do so, has been fined a third of his annual income by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

More solicitors have attacked the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s plans for new fining guidance, rejecting its “Robin Hood” approach of calculating fines based on income.

The body tasked with overseeing legal regulators’ anti-money laundering work said yesterday it was not seeing “the consistent, effective improvement we need”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s proposed reform of its fining powers is arbitrary, not fit for purpose, and inconsistent with its legal obligations, City solicitors have warned.

The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority has decided to extend Anna Bradley’s term as chair for a further two years rather than recruit a replacement.

An employed barrister jailed for raping a woman he met on Tinder has been banned from working for law firms after he failed in his appeal.

A sole practitioner who used client money to pay his law firm’s business costs, including the salaries of several family members who worked for him, has been struck off.

A solicitor convicted of blackmailing a fellow director with a threat to blow the whistle in an attempt to negotiate an exit from their company has been struck off.