Solicitors

Two directors of an alternative business structure have been fined for not supervising a branch office where a fellow director and a bogus solicitor carried out a £3.3m property fraud.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published details of fines levied against six law firms for failing to confirm in time that they had a compliant anti-money laundering firm-wide risk assessment.

A solicitor who charged a client’s estate fees of over £9,000 during a period of “complete inactivity” has been struck off. He was both its executor and residuary beneficiary.

A solicitor who held nearly 1,500 historical client balances and whose failure to remedy accounts rule breaches was described as a “complete dereliction of duty”, has been suspended for two years.

Colin Poole, the solicitor boss of Claims Direct, deceived the company into paying him £9.75m when he failed to deliver on a promise to divest his interest in his law firm, the High Court has ruled.

A probe into the lessons of the Post Office scandal for corporate governance, criminal justice and lawyer regulation has been launched and will push regulators to effect change.

The SRA is to follow the approach of the Financial Conduct Authority when capping the fees law firms charge for financial services claims management work – and will leave personal injury work alone for now.

The SRA Compensation Fund paid out more than £10m to the victims of solicitors’ financial dishonesty last year, a 37% increase on the previous 12 months, new figures have shown.

The board of trustees and directors of Solicitors Regulation Authority Ltd met for the first time last week after agreeing the transfer of £9m in assets to the new company from the Law Society.

A law firm revenue controller given a suspended jail sentence after diverting £32,000 in payments meant for suppliers to his own bank account has been banned from working in the profession.

A hardening indemnity insurance market and pressure from the Law Society have persuaded the Solicitors Regulation Authority to keep the Solicitors Indemnity Fund open for a further year.

Two solicitors have been fined for allowing their firm to take on work in areas where they had no experience and accepting client money when it did not have a client account.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is planning a pilot with other legal regulators on how to extend the use of unbundling as evidence showed it could save consumers up to 50% in fees, it has emerged.

Correspondence between solicitors involving “an element of deception” as to its real purpose can be covered by litigation privilege, the High Court has ruled.

The Legal Services Board is set to recommend an accreditation scheme for review and comparison websites as take-up among both law firms and consumers continues to rise.