R Z Choudhury & M Kamruzzaman

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Rahat Zaman Choudhury, sole principal of Zaman Choudhury & Co, and his assistant solicitor Mohammad Kamruzzaman were found to have breached the Solicitors' Accounts Rules and SCC Rule 1.02. An SRA investigation found a minimum client account shortage of £101,219.86. The Tribunal found both Respondents acted dishonestly in relation to the Mrs M-O, Clients S/P & Others, and Mr S & Mrs A matters, where client cash was given to the First Respondent and used for personal purposes (e.g. daughter's wedding, airline tickets, personal loan, salary advance) and later replaced. The Tribunal applied SRA v Sharma and found no exceptional circumstances. Both Respondents were struck off the Roll. The First Respondent was ordered to pay £35,000 costs and the Second Respondent £17,000 (total £52,000), neither enforceable without leave. The First Respondent's appeal to the High Court was dismissed with £11,955.12 costs.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper use of client money
• Report serious misconduct of others

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct took place over a number of months
• Client funds placed at risk
• First Respondent's cavalier and reckless disregard of proper obligations and abdication of responsibility
• Use of Second Respondent and his wife to subvert Bangladesh exchange control limits
• Both Respondents benefited from client funds
• First Respondent was not a credible witness, flippant and cavalier

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary matters
• Client funds ultimately replaced; no intention permanently to deprive clients
• Relatively small sums involved given firm's volume of business
• Second Respondent's cooperation with the SRA (charges arose from his admissions)
• Second Respondent relatively inexperienced, qualified only since 2006, misguided loyalty to First Respondent
• Good character references for Second Respondent
• Second Respondent's ill health and modest means