A solicitor has been struck off and ordered to pay costs of £29,775.84 for multiple breaches of Money Laundering Regulations that the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal said represented ‘widespread and fundamental non-compliance with critical regulations’ amounting to systemic failures.
The judgment was issued against William Joseph Harris following an application by the Solicitors Regulation Authority detailing a series of allegations against the sole practitioner.
The core of the proceedings concerned what the judgment referred to as ‘widespread and fundamental failures to comply with the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLRs 2017) and the SRA Accounts Rules over a six-year period’.
The SRA had alleged that Harris had:
- Inaccurately confirmed to the SRA that his firm, William Harris Solicitors, had a firm wide risk assessment (FWRA) when it did not.
- Failed to ensure that the firm had the FWRA or the required policies, controls and procedures (PCPs).
- Failed to ensure the necessary scrutiny regarding the source of funds of 63 conveyancing clients.
- Failed to ensure the firm had an adequate system for the application of customer due diligence (CDD) measures.
- Failed to ensure residual client balances were returned to 54 clients.
- Failed to obtain an accountant’s report for several accounting periods during which the firm held client money.
A seventh allegation was withdrawn.
Harris – who held direct personal responsibility for compliance – admitted each of the allegations. The admission of dishonesty regarding the FWRA confirmation in response to a direct regulatory enquiry was considered ‘a very serious example’ by the Tribunal, given Harris’s primary practice areas being the ‘high-risk’ areas of residential conveyancing and probate.
The judgment added:
“The Firm’s vulnerability to money laundering and terrorist financing, underscored by £8.8 million in unverified funds, posed a direct threat to the integrity of the legal profession and public safety.”
Clients had suffered actual harm through being deprived of over £100,000 in residual balances ‘for years’, the Tribunal found, with delays in reporting and misleading information preventing the SRA from gaining full knowledge of the issues sooner.
The order that Harris be struck off the Roll of Solicitors and pay costs of £29,775.84 ‘was the only reasonable and proportionate sanction to mark the seriousness of the misconduct, protect the public and maintain the reputation of the profession’, the Tribunal concluded.
