Selliah Veeravagu

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

The Respondent, a sole practitioner under Veera & Co., failed to maintain compliant books of account (no clients' cash book maintained 1 Oct 1999-31 Jul 2000; no comparisons of reconciled cash with client ledger balances; client ledgers contained no current balances) and failed to cooperate with the Law Society's Investigation Accountant, repeatedly failing to produce required documents despite multiple postponements. The Tribunal found the allegations proved beyond reasonable doubt, rejecting the Respondent's unsupported submissions. This case was heard with three related cases (8857, 8858, 8860-2003); the Respondent was struck off the Roll across all four cases and ordered to pay 100% of the costs in this case (8859-2003), subject to detailed assessment. No express finding of dishonesty was made.

Duties found breached:

• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports
• Report serious misconduct of others

Aggravating factors:

• Failure to cooperate with his own professional body despite the Investigation Accountant's flexibility and multiple postponements
• Solicitor too busy to carry out necessary accounts work, telling the Accountant to issue his report