SRA succeeds in application to amend grounds of appeal over SDT costs against it

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has succeeded in a bid to adduce new evidence and amend its grounds of appeal in an upcoming hearing over disputed costs in a tribunal case.

The regulator was ordered by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to pay costs of £74,950 after allegations it lodged against Hon-Ying Amie Tsang were dismissed. The SRA appealed to the High Court and, in its amendment, disputed the validity of £15,500 of that sum.

The regulator sought to add a fifth ground to its appeal arguing the costs decision was wrong because ‘the costs served by the respondent misled the SDT’.

Chris Kirk-Blythe, of CompLex Legal Limited, who prepared Tsang’s cost schedule, contacted the regulator and alerted the SRA to a ’possible discrepancy between the fees paid by the respondent and claimed on the cost schedule’. Kirk-Blythe provided correspondence ‘said to show a dispute about whether £15,500 had been paid and was or was not due’.

Though Kirk-Blythe contacted the SRA in September, there was ‘no indication of any further action’ until February and ‘no explanation’.

Mr Justice Eyre allowed the addition of the fifth ground of appeal, but stayed this until decisions were made on grounds 1-4. He said: ‘Those costs [ordered by the SDT] were based on a schedule which included £15,500 fees said to be paid or payable to CompLex Legal Limited, the alter ego of which was Chris Kirk-Blythe. The SRA appeal against that decision by an appellant notice…advances four grounds of appeal.

‘Gregory Treverton-Jones KC [for Tsang] accepts the provisional argument that the SDT was misled not by his client but potentially by Mr Kirk-Blythe.’ It was accepted that ‘the correspondence put before the court does raise concerns as to the £15,500’.

Speaking of ground 5, the judge said: ‘It requires determination as to whether the panel tribunal was misled and the knowledge and belief of the respondent.

‘On my reading of correspondence at this stage, the position is far from clear-cut. I do not know what Mr Kirk-Blythe said to alert the SRA. The respondent says the question mark arises because of the actions of Mr Kirk-Blythe, not anything done on her part.

‘What I am going to permit is the amendment to add ground 5 but I am going to stay determination of that ground pending further submissions. [That] will enable the hearing to go ahead and minimise risk to the appellant.’

The hearing is listed to begin this week.