CILEX members declare 'no confidence' after demanding special general meeting to discuss SRA takeover

Furious members of CILEX, including a former president, have declared 'no confidence’ in the body's executive and board amid an escalating row over plans for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to take over regulation of legal executives.

An open letter seen by the Gazette, signed by more than a dozen legal executives informally known as the ‘Cilex Action Group’, reveals that a special general meeting was requested on 27 September to allow members to indicate their views by way of a vote on CILEX’s plans to switch regulator.

According to the letter, the bye-laws require CILEX to convene an SGM within 42 days of receiving a request. Yesterday was the last day. The request for a special general meeting must be supported by 50 fellows. Cilex Action Group said it had the support of 52 fellows.

The letter goes on to say that there is no provision within the bye-laws for CILEX to refuse to hold an SGM for any reason or to decline to include any items on the agenda.

The signatories ‘give notice that we have no confidence in the Chartered Institute, its executive or its board members’. The letter is signed by over a dozen members including Stephen D Gowland, a former CILEX president who publicly lambasted CILEX in a LinkedIn post in September.

The letter comes days after CILEX’s consultation on plans to move from CILEx Regulation to the SRA closed. The Law Society has called the proposals ‘seriously misguided’. A CILEx Regulation poll suggests the majority of legal executives are reluctant to switch regulator.

In a statement, CILEX president Emma Davies said: ‘CILEX received a notice from a small group of CILEX members requesting a special general meeting to allow for a vote on regulatory matters. When CILEX checked the validity of the list of names supplied against the bye-law requirements, a number of those listed were identified as not meeting the eligibility requirement as a result of their membership status.’

Davies said of those who were validated as eligible, many informed CILEX that they had no knowledge that their name was being used to call an SGM.

The action group told the Gazette that there were a couple of names that ended up on a combined list that were not valid, (for instance, they had retired). But after triple checking, at the time of submission the group had 52 registered fellows. The group says CILEX refused to let the group know which fellows they considered not valid and the group had to do its own check.

Davies said the request fell ‘some way short’ of the requirement contained in the bye-laws for 50 eligible fellows to have supported the motion.

‘Furthermore, to fulfil the request would have placed CILEX in breach of the LSB Internal Governance Rules and Legal Services Act 2007 requirements to maintain separation of representative and regulatory functions. The request was therefore legitimately rejected.’

Davies added: ‘We are disappointed that a small minority appear to be misrepresenting the views of the majority of CILEX members. CILEX is currently reviewing the responses to the consultation which closed this week and we are encouraged by the responses received. We plan to publish the consultation outcome soon after our board meeting on 29 November.’

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