Firms with the biggest pockets will be viewed as escaping justice if the Solicitors Regulation Authority is allowed to issue fines up to £500,000. That was the warning from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, which currently handles all cases where fines exceed £25,000 and faces the prospect of the regulator effectively moving into its space.

SRA proposals for two new tiers of fining bands have been roundly criticised already, with representative groups lining up to condemn them as unfair, devastating for firms and solicitors, and potentially unlawful.

The SDT’s censure adds another layer to the backlash, with the body insisting it is better equipped to provide a consistent and transparent process and to provide a real deterrent.

The richest firms would see the potential of an SRA fine as an ‘arithmetical problem to be treated on a cost/benefit basis’, the tribunal said in response to the SRA’s consultation. ‘There is a significant risk that the profession and the public will not see this as a credible deterrent but the reduction of justice to something akin to a transactional and commercial event.’

The SDT added that the new fining powers would add a layer of complexity to the process and asked why such changes are needed. It also questioned how matters of the seriousness proposed in the new bands could be retained in-house by the SRA. In contrast, it pointed out, the SDT is independent of the investigatory process, with its systems transparent and its judgments carefully thought out and adding to the body of regulatory law.

‘A single form of sanction cannot, on its own, be a credible deterrent and a range of different forms of sanction, (of which fining is only one) is required to deter the most serious breaches of the rules. Serious breaches should not, as a matter of principle, be retained by the investigator and summarily disposed of in the way envisaged.’

The SRA has made the proposals for a new fining  framework in preparation for the government potentially granting it unlimited fining powers. This power already exists for misconduct relating to financial crime but the SRA has asked the government for a wider scope.

 

This article is now closed for comment.

Topics