BAILII is celebrating 24 years of free online access to the law! Would you consider making a contribution?
No donation is too small. If every visitor before 31 December gives just £1, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing free access to the law.
Thank you very much for your support!
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] | ||
England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions |
||
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Wells v Law Society [2004] EWHC 2501 (Admin) (21 October 2004) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2004/2501.html Cite as: [2004] EWHC 2501 (Admin) |
[New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help]
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Strand London WC2 |
||
B e f o r e :
MRS JUSTICE HALLETT DBE
MR JUSTICE GIBBS
____________________
STEVEN WELLS | (CLAIMANT) | |
-v- | ||
THE LAW SOCIETY | (DEFENDANT) |
____________________
Computer-Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of
Smith Bernal Wordwave Limited
190 Fleet Street London EC4A 2AG
Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Fax No: 020 7831 8838
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR P ENGELMAN (instructed by Andersons Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the CLAIMANT
MR G MARRIOTT (instructed by Gorvins) appeared on behalf of the DEFENDANT
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
"By using an account in your name, operated by a firm of solicitors, you will have the full protection offered by the Law Society and their Indemnity Fund and Compensation Scheme. At no time can anyone else gain access to your money. No one has ever lost money whilst their funds were being held in a solicitors client account."
"Mr Lamb was a director of MML and of Listers. In that capacity he held money on behalf of clients, the participators in the plan, where it was clear that he intended to and did make money from the scheme. The client would have been better off making similar payments into an ordinary savings account. It was clear that Mr Lamb's making money at the expense of the client demonstrated a clear conflict of interest between himself and his client. The same set of circumstances clearly amounted to an abuse of the fiduciary duty existing between solicitor and client and did amount to taking advantage of a client to whom the scheme might have appeared to operate to his advantage when manifestly it did not.
"The Tribunal did not consider that the 'discipline' that it was said the scheme imposed on participators was such an advantage that it outweighed all other considerations. It was inevitable that the scheme would be attractive only to those who were not sophisticated in financial affairs. It has to be said that a solicitor could simply take custody of a building society passbook to prevent a client from having access to his savings if that was what the client required. In such a case there would be no deduction from those savings and the whole sum saved plus interest would be available to the client in due course. To hold a client's savings, charge him for doing so and pay him a low rate of interest on the balance did amount to taking advantage of a client who was unsophisticated in financial matters.
"It was entirely clear that no interest had been paid to the clients whose accounts revealed a nil balance, and to which a 'closing fee' had been debited. The Tribunal have not been required to decide whether Mr Lamb intended to pay interest to those clients when it could be calculated. The Tribunal does consider it very unsatisfactory that no attempt had been made to calculate and apply interest to those accounts. It is the Tribunal's view that the latest possible 'appropriate time' for such calculation and payment was the closure of the account. If the calculation was not possible on the computerised system, then another method of calculation should have been employed."
"The Tribunal find that Mr Wells's culpability in connection with the non payment of interest due to clients to have been at a higher level than that of Mr Lamb. Mr Wells did fail to pay interest to clients and the Tribunal consider that he deliberately kept them out of their money and to that extent he was dishonest -- again applying the test in Royal Brunei Airlines v Tan."