We can’t expect small-fry SRA to fight oligarchs and organised crime

You have to hope for their sakes that nobody at the Solicitors Regulation Authority had a Google news alert set up for the organisation this week. If they did, their inbox was likely to be besieged by emails, as the solicitors regulator was hauled over the coals for everything from failing to stop economic crime to enabling Russian warlords.

I am rarely shy in criticising the SRA when it has made mistakes, but isn’t there a point where this torrent of blame and scapegoating from politicians feels a little unfair? And if the SRA really is expected to be at the vanguard of preventing drug trafficking, multi-millionaire sex pests and international criminals, shouldn’t it have the resources to give it a decent shot?

The parliamentary kicking began on Tuesday when SRA chief executive Paul Philip appeared before the House of Lords communications and digital committee. Philip revealed 40 law firms are being investigated in relation to strategic lawsuits against public participation – essentially looking into whether lawyers have breached their obligations in seeking to silence journalists and whistleblowers.

Committee chair Baroness Stowell complained Philip’s pledge that half the investigations would be completed by the middle of this year showed this was ‘quite a slow process’.

But one wonders what else the SRA is expected to do? All but one of these cases was reported after last spring when the issue of wealthy clients – particularly Russian oligarchs – using lawyers to prevent their wrongdoing being exposed came to light. These are necessary cases and it is in the public interest to pursue them, but let’s not pretend they are simple to negotiate. Any lawyer being investigated for such conduct is likely to be well-attuned to deal with whatever the SRA has to throw at them. These are savvy, sophisticated respondents with no doubt far greater resources than the regulator.

On the same day in the House of Commons, in a debate on SLAPPs, Conservative MP Bob Seely referred to the ‘conniving silence of the Bar Council, the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which seems to spend very little time regulating’. Again, the actions of lawyers imposing SLAPPs are highly questionable, but there is no evidence of a conspiracy by the representative bodies or regulators. The SRA, in particular, cannot possibly loudly proclaim that solicitors are guilty of misconduct without going through the proper disciplinary processes.

Later in the same session, MPs were on the warpath over the SRA’s perceived lack of action around anti-money laundering. Again, there are legitimate questions to be asked about the SRA’s record and particularly its approach to bigger firms, but to call its response ‘pathetic’, as Labour’s Dame Margaret Hodge did, hardly seems fair. The SRA did not have the power to issue anything more than a £2,000 fine until last year and has recently upped the ante significantly by hitting a firm for £20,000 over non-compliance with AML regulations. Criticism for lack of strong penalties is like giving a fighter a feather duster and asking why they haven’t achieved more knock-outs.

The solution, some have suggested, is to raise the SRA’s fining powers to £250m, but the idea that this size of organisation would have the clout to flex such muscle is fanciful.

Because that’s the point when it comes to criticising the SRA for not doing more about these huge issues. This is an organisation that is not set up to be the government’s gatekeeper for free speech and economic crime prevention. It operates on an annual budget of £60.5m, funded entirely by the profession, and has around 600 full-time staff. Compare this to the Financial Conduct Authority, which has annual operating costs of £586m and can call on a staff of more than 4,000.

If politicians want the SRA to do more – and they are entitled to say it should – then this requires a whole new discussion about what kind of organisation it should be. Investigating firms that can boast massive resources and an army of lawyers is time-consuming and costly. Before MPs and peers start lambasting its work, perhaps they should consider what can realistically be expected of a body ill-equipped to fight these kind of battles.