The SRA’s fining power for recognised bodies, solicitors and employees (who are not in ABSs) has increased from £2,000 to £25,000.
The SRA has published its latest suite of annual reports. They received 273 reports of potential anti-money laundering breaches, up from 196 the previous year. The number of authorised firms has fallen from 10,107 in 2019/20 to 9,860 in 2020/21, including 1040 licensed bodies (alternative business structures – ABSs). It is notable that there are still many practices without the protection of limited liability – 1,878 sole practitioners and 1,352 partnerships. While this does not afford complete protection against personal liability, it is nonetheless a valuable step to take.
The SRA reports also identify key areas of enforcement action which include sexual misconduct, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), AML, dubious investment schemes Transparency Rules breaches, and consumer misselling claims.
We have had a number of instructions from firms wishing to provide ‘white labelled’ services through other professional service firms. These give rise to a variety of compliance issues: suffice to say, for present purposes, that caution is needed.
We are also advising firms on a variety of SRA investigations. Recent instructions include #MeToo issues, use of client account as a bank-ing facility (and how to avoid it), and accounts issues arising from serious breaches by a predecessor firm.
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