Law & Lawyers Limited, the First Respondent, is a recognised body authorised for all legal services practising in areas including Landlord and Tenant (Commercial and Domestic); Immigration; Family/Matrimonial; Immigration; Property – Commercial; and Property – Residential. Frances Mathew, the Secondment Respondent, was a Director at the Firm at the time of the matters giving rise to the allegations. He also held several senior regulatory compliance positions at the Firm.

An SRA investigation commenced at the Firm in 2022 and identified issues that included a failure to undertake accurate reconciliations of the client account, a client account shortfall of £40,636.08 that arose from 423 client matters, additionally the firm held £287,821.46 of residual balances across 1,786 matters.

The Second Respondent had failed to ensure that the Firm complied with its obligations under MLRs 2017, namely by failing to ensure the Firm had a firm wide risk assessment as required by Regulation 18 of MLRs 2017. It was also alleged that Second Respondent acted recklessly when declaring to the SRA that a compliant firm-wide risk assessment was in place.

The First and Second Respondents admitted the allegations which included breaches of the SRA Accounts Rules 2019, SRA Principles 2011/2019 and SRA Code of Conduct 2011 and an agreed factual background was presented jointly by both Respondents and the SRA.

The Tribunal found all allegations proved and imposed a fine of £25,000.00 on each of the First and Second Respondents. In respect of the costs of the proceedings the Tribunal ordered that costs totalling £38,000 plus VAT were to be paid by the Respondents on a joint and several basis.