SRA v (1) David Clinch and (2) Robert Andrew Schofield

Summary: Both Respondents acted in transactions which bore the ‘hallmarks of money laundering and/or fraudulent financial arrangements’ in breach of Principle 2 (to act with integrity) and Outcome 7.5 of the Solicitors Code of Conduct 2011.

The Second Respondent accepted that neither Respondents had carried out anti-money laundering checks on their clients in the relevant transaction, including a Russian account to which funds were later transferred to from the firm’s client account.

The Respondents had not satisfied themselves in accordance with the anti-money laundering warnings that it was appropriate to make payments to the foreign accounts.

The Second Respondent did not believe at the time that the transaction involved money laundering in spite of the fact that payments were to be received from third parties where he could not verify the source of the funds.

Sanction:

Both Respondents have been struck off, further to being found to have behaved dishonestly and have been jointly ordered to pay costs in the sum of £40,000.

The following was posted on the Disciplinary digest – August 2016

Read more: (PDF on the SDT website) 

Decision number: 11292-2014
Decision date: 11 April 2016