A long-running feud between the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Soophia Khan is set to continue after the regulator announced that it has referred the high-profile solicitor to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
Khan was jailed in January after being found liable for contempt for breaching two High Court orders requiring her to deliver up client files to the regulator following its intervention into her Leicester practice. She was released from prison last week. Yesterday, the SRA published a decision notice stating that it has referred her to the tribunal, listing 11 allegations.
The allegations are subject to a hearing and are as yet unproven.
The allegations include settling costs claims on behalf of two clients without informing them of the settlement offer or its acceptance, receiving a settlement cheque that was paid directly into the firm’s office account without first sending a bill of costs to the clients, and fabricating or falsifying a pro-forma fee note purporting to show contemporaneous notification to the clients of the costs claimed by the firm.
The SRA also alleges that Khan failed to deliver up practice documents within her possession as required by the intervention notice and failed to deliver up items listed in two High Court orders.
During committal proceedings last December, the regulator asked the High Court to exercise its jurisdiction to strike Khan off the roll, submitting that to do so would be ‘vastly more efficient for the public purse and Ms Khan’ – a request that was rejected by Mr Justice Leech, who said there may be wider grounds of mitigation that Khan might be able to put before the tribunal.
