Category: Law Firms

Clyde & Co fined £500k after admitting due diligence failure

Law Firms, Regulatory Fines
Top-50 firm Clyde & Co has been fined half a million pounds after admitting failing to carry out due diligence on a corporate client for more than four years. The firm’s former partner Edward Henry Mills-Webb was also fined £11,900 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after admitting that he ‘materially contributed’ to the failure to check more than a dozen transactions as required by anti-money laundering regulations. There was no evidence that the client or its principals were involved in money laundering or financial crime. It is the second sanction levied on Clyde & Co in the past seven years.…

Majority of law firms submitting no Suspicious Activity Reports – Study

Law Firms, Money Laundering
New research has revealed that just two in five law firms submitted any Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) over the last two years on average. The study – conducted by risk management platform Thirdfort – found solicitors in the UK submitted 3,436 SARs in 2021/2022. Meanwhile, there were 9,813 registered law firms at the end of March 2022, according to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. So, if each firm were to submit just one SAR, this would account for just 35% of law firms. Yet if certain firms are submitting numerous SARs, the actual proportion of firms submitting reports could be “significantly…