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All consumers of legal services – using a broad definition that includes “linked professional services and advice that has a legal dimension” – should have access to the Legal Ombudsman, its chairman said today.

Law firms will be held responsible for breaching the personal injury referral fee ban if they sign up to ventures that appear to be genuine joint marketing schemes but prove illegal, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned. It will also target senior individuals within firms that “recklessly trade into insolvency”.

A company that provides both claims management services and legal expenses insurance has joined forces with a law firm in an alternative business structure that needed a waiver to allow a 27-year-old solicitor to be its head of legal practice. It was one of two newly licensed CMCs.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Claims Management Regulator have dismissed a Law Society suggestion that they will not be ready to implement the referral fee ban on 1 April. The society said there was a possibility the pair “may have some difficulty” in doing so.

Rogue claims management companies have been slicing off more than a third of the cash awarded in settlement of payment protection insurance mis-selling claims, according to a report by Citizens Advice. The charity also attacked the regulator for not pursuing unauthorised CMCs in the courts.