This week’s free compliance webinar was all about solicitors undertakings. A topic which fundamentally underpins many legal services, but which is often taken for granted.
See the ‘Webinars’ section below for the recording and slides.
In this post we look at some of the key parts that came out of the webinar:
- What is a solicitors undertaking
- Enforcement
- Tips for giving and receiving undertakings
ICYMI: Legal Professional Privilege: Reporting AML suspicions is “not black and white”
News and Guidance
Law Society Updates
- LSAG anti-money laundering guidance approved by Treasury – HM Treasury finally approves the core AML guidance to the legal profession, with minor amendments. The LSAG guidance now has legal standing. See also Legal Sector Affinity Group – Changes and approval by HM Treasury.
- Guide: Remote working, client interaction and associated use of AML technology
- Guide: Impacts of economic instability on money laundering risk
- Practice Note: Supervision
SRA Updates
- Guidance: Accepting instructions from vulnerable clients or third parties acting on their behalf
- Guidance (updated): Confidentiality of client information
- Statement: Post six-year run-off cover and the Solicitors Indemnity Fund: next steps – further 12 month extension to SIF granted.
Other Updates
- NCA and OFSI issue red alert with private sector on financial sanctions evasion typologies by Russian elites and enablers – lawyers could be targeted with sanctions if they help oligarchs and other sanctioned individuals hide assets.
Webinars
Recording: Undertakings
This week our free webinar we went back to basics, focusing on professional undertakings. One of those topics we often take for granted, but which underpins many legal services.
Watch the recording here (passcode 1=Ga@1bV) – available for 30 days.
Recording: Legal Professional Privilege
Last month we were thrilled to host Jeremy Phillips QC and Mark O’Brien O’Reilly to discuss legal professional privilege.
The compliance world is sometimes guilty of glossing over the importance of privilege. For example, the interplay between reporting suspicious activity under AML legislation and LPP. The Proceeds of Crime Act expressly protects privileged circumstances, but the solicitor needs to be confident that it applies.
Watch the recording here (passcode A9S*%s=b) – available for a few more days.
Disciplinary decisions
- Richard Graham Gouldsborough – fined £3,000 for mistakenly paying £68,000 deposit money to a fraudster, impersonating a seller in a commercial property transaction.
- Tania Aly – non-lawyer ‘struck off’ (Section 43/99 Order) for dishonestly submitting evidence of work experience for Police Station Accreditation.
- Joanne Sagar – non-lawyer ‘struck off’ for misappropriating almost £12,000 from her employer.
- James Borbor Allie – solicitor struck off for using deceased client’s estate for his own benefit, including property purchases, resulting in a loss to the estate of around £1.4m.
- Sean Callaghan – Deputy District Judge struck off for misappropriation of over £250,000 from law firms and clients over 15+ years.
- Habib-ur-Rahmaan Maroof – solicitor struck off following German conviction for tax fraud, where the dishonesty threshold was reached by him ‘turning a blind eye’ to criminal behaviour.
- Clarkes LLP – firm fined £2,000 for AML failures, in a clear signal that the SRA is losing patience with firms that haven’t heeded the warnings.
- Silas Chidolue Ogbonna – COLP rebuked for failing to supervise an immigration caseworker, resulting in an application for Judicial Review that ‘undermined the operation of the immigration system’.
- Lewis Wells – non-lawyer ‘struck off’ for dishonestly misrepresenting discussions with the other party to his client, and failing to follow client’s instructions.
- Anthony Burns – sole practitioner fined £2,000 for failing to comply with a Legal Ombudsman decision.
- Christine Bailey – receptionist ‘struck off’ for taking £180 petty cash without consent.
