A high-profile solicitor and legal commentator has said he will stop client work in the UK after his firm became the latest to be fined for breaching money laundering regulations.
Law Abroad Ltd, trading as Underwoods Solicitors, agreed to pay £5,468 after the Solicitors Regulation Authority found it had failed to conduct risks assessments on client matters, as required by the MLRs. During an inspection last July, investigators looked at eight files and found none had a documented risk assessment.
The SRA said the conduct ‘showed a disregard for statutory and regulatory obligations and had the potential to cause harm’. This was particularly so because the firm carried out conveyancing, probate and some trust work.
There was no evidence of harm to consumers and the Hemel Hempstead firm did not financially benefit from the conduct.
Kerry Underwood founded the firm more than 30 years ago as well as publishing books and articles on costs, regulation and the marketing and advertising of legal practices. Underwoods was one of the first firms to embrace conditional fee agreements, TV advertising and offshoring work.
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Underwood stressed that, under the terms of the SRA settlement, the firm did not deny the allegations. But he added that even if he had wanted to fight the charges, ‘the reality is that even successfully defending them would financially ruin virtually any small or medium-sized firms as costs are rarely awarded against the SRA’.
In correspondence with the SRA, seen by the Gazette, Underwood said he would be closing the firm as the wider regulatory regime in the UK was ‘determined to crush all small and medium sized firms of solicitors’.
He wrote to the SRA: ‘I do not blame you for this, and I realise that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is bound by what is frankly a highly oppressive regime in England and Wales, and one which will soon be seen to be one of the most harmful developments in the 1,000-year history of the court system in England and Wales.’
Underwood said he was reluctant to give up his position as a solicitor after nearly 44 years of unblemished record, but he would consider coming off the roll. Law Abroad may be kept as an SRA-regulated firm if someone wants to take it on but will be doing no client work in the foreseeable future, Underwood said.
He has also applied for permanent residency in South Africa, where he is currently based, and has become a partner with a firm of attorneys in that country which will switch its name and brand to Underwoods.
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