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England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Alexander-Theodotou v Solicitors Regulatory Authority [2023] EWHC 186 (Admin) (31 January 2023) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2023/186.html Cite as: [2023] EWHC 186 (Admin) |
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King's Bench Division
Administrative Court
Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
____________________
DR KATHERINE ALEXANDER-THEODOTOU |
Claimant |
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- and - |
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THE SOLICITORS REGULATORY AUTHORITY |
Respondent |
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Andrew Tabachnik KC (instructed by Capsticks Solicitors) for the Defendant
Hearing date: 24 January 2023
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Crown Copyright ©
Mr Justice Ritchie:
The Parties
Bundles
The Issues
Law and procedure
"49(1) An appeal from the Tribunal shall lie to the High Court.
(2) … an appeal shall lie at the instance of the applicant or complainant or of the person with respect to whom the application or complaint was made…
(4) The High Court… shall have power to make such order on an appeal under this section as it may think fit…"
The Appeal
The appeal hearing
"The Tribunal was wrong to deal with the Rule 14 allegations first and in isolation from the Rule 12 allegations, by doing so it adopted a flawed approach to the issue of dishonesty."
"The Appellant's defence, in large part, to the Rule 12 allegations is that the "AP litigation" falls within the jurisdiction of Cyprus and out with the regulatory ambit of the SRA and the Legal Ombudsman. The jurisdiction issue would have been explored, in depth, during the hearing of the Rule 12 allegations. However, the jurisdiction issue was also fundamental to the Rule 14 allegations because it explained the Appellant's state of mind when the forms were being completed. The issue of jurisdiction lay at the heart of determining whether, by failing to declare the SRA's investigations and the awards made by the Legal Ombudsman, both of which the Appellant believed were invalid for want of jurisdiction and therefore did not need to be declared - her conduct was dishonest. In accordance with Ivy v Genting Casinos [2017] 3 WLR 1212, the Tribunal were required to consider whether the Appellant genuinely held her belief as to the facts, the very matters that formed the basis of the Rule 12 allegations and which therefore, it was said, should have been disclosed to the insurers. Without exploration of the Rule 12 allegations, the Tribunal could not come to a proper basis for determining the Appellant's genuinely held beliefs. Therefore, by dealing with the Rule 12 allegations in isolation, the Tribunal's approach to the question of dishonesty was fundamentally flawed."
" … When dishonesty is in question the fact-finding Tribunal must first ascertain (subjectively) the actual state of the individual's knowledge or belief as to the facts. The reasonableness or otherwise of his belief is a matter of evidence (often in practice determinative) going to whether he held the belief, but it is not an
additional requirement that his belief must be reasonable; the question is whether it is genuinely held. When once his actual state of mind as to knowledge or belief as to facts is established, the question whether his conduct was honest or dishonest is to be determined by the fact-finder by applying the (objective) standards of ordinary decent people. There is no requirement that the defendant must appreciate that what he has done is, by those standards, dishonest."
17.1 Firstly to determine the Appellant's actual subjective state of knowledge and belief as to the facts.
17.2 Then the next question for the Tribunal was to determine whether the Appellant's conduct was honest or dishonest using the objective standards of ordinary decent people.
"At the outset of the AP litigation, the clients instructed both the Appellant's English firm, HHS, and her Cypriot firm, KAT LLC. However, it is the Appellant's position that, from at least 2014, the case transferred to Cyprus, with HHS acting as an English agent KAT LLC from that point forward (an English agent being necessary because some of the litigation continued to take place in England, before the High Court and, more recently, the Court of Appeal)".
The Tribunal's Judgment
(1) Whilst practising at Highgate Hill solicitors (a sole practice) the Appellant issued unauthorised group litigation in Cyprus in April 2016 against Michael Kyprianou and Co in the names of former clients without their knowledge or consent breaching principles 2 and 6 of the 2011 SRA principles.
(2) The Appellant breached a fixed fee agreement and charged Mr and Mrs W more than the fixed fee arrangement, threatened to withdraw if not paid and submitted misleading fee notes in September 2018 and a misleading bill of costs in June 2019.
(3) The Appellant did inadequate accounting for Mr and Mrs W by failing to account for client monies, failing to reconcile properly and failing to demonstrate that HHS had funds to meet their client liabilities between 2015 and 2017.
(4) The Appellant failed to cooperate with the Legal Ombudsman by failing to comply with a decision against her dated November 2017 to pay £2,100 to clients and failing to respond to the Legal Ombudsman's request for information in November 2017 and failing to comply with the Legal Ombudsman's decision awarding compensation of £250 to a client.
The allegations
1.1 In August 2020 the Appellant made false statements in support of a professional negligence insurance application and did so dishonestly.
1.2 In June 2021 the Appellant made false statements in support of a Professional insurance application and did so dishonestly.
1.1 The Appellant was reckless in the above 2 cases if not dishonest.
The preliminary issue
The Appellant's multiple applications
The Factual findings
It was not me it was my staff
I had no duty to tell the Insurers, I had a defence
Actually I did give my brokers all the information
Dishonesty
Applying the law to the facts
"The Tribunal considered that contention to be incredulous [sic], disingenuous and irrelevant for any solicitor to make let alone one of Dr Theodotou's standing and experience."
Analysis 1
Findings continued
Analysis 2
Other grounds of appeal
Th adjournment application
Conclusions
END