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The maximum fine for misdemeanours by alternative business structures should be £250m, the Legal Services Board has decided, having considered the amounts of money made by some law firms out of miners’ compensation claims.

The miners’ compensation scandal shows that a maximum fine of £150m for misconduct or non-compliance by alternative business structures is too low, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned. With new entrants set to enter the legal market after 6 October, it was “perhaps dangerous to rely too heavily upon turnover figures in the current market to assess appropriate fining powers”.

Alternative business structures face a fine up of to £150 million for misconduct or non-compliance, with a figure of £50 million for individuals working within them, under plans released by the Legal Services Board (LSB). The LSB said such large figures “will have strong deterrence in the market and avoid situations where any entity or individual may consider ‘pricing in’ non-compliance”.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) should be the sole regulator for advocacy, the chairman of the Legal Services Board has said. Speaking at a BSB-organised session at Saturday’s Bar Council annual conference in London, David Edmonds said he agreed with the Master of Rolls, Lord Neuberger, who had earlier told the conference that the number of regulators “all regulating [advocacy] is ridiculous” and that if the 2007 Legal Services Act “does not lead to activity-based regulation, it will have failed”.

Solicitors are set to shoulder the vast majority of the Legal Services Board (LSB) and Legal Ombudsman’s (LeO) £25m annual running costs for the next three years at least, it emerged today. The LSB confirmed that it would proceed with its plan to levy its own £5m costs on the basis of the number of authorised persons overseen by each approved regulator, and most of LeO’s £20m costs based on the number of complaints generated by each group.