Craig Cooper; Erich Kurtz

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

The SRA brought three allegations against two solicitors (Cooper and Kurtz), owners/managers of Barings Ltd, arising from the firm's handling of high-cost short-term ("Pay Day Loan") mis-selling claims via automated onboarding websites (Pure Claims and Your Claims). Allegation 1 (making misleading statements to clients and failing to obtain informed consent, breaching Principles 2, 4 and 6) and Allegation 2 (failing to assess the merits of clients' claims, breaching Principles 4 and 6) were brought against both Respondents. Allegation 3 (against the First Respondent only) concerned receipt of £230,500 into the firm's client account in relation to property purchases for overseas clients without adequate Client Due Diligence, breaching the MLRs 2017, Outcome 7.5 and Principles 6, 7 and 8. The Tribunal found all allegations NOT PROVED against both Respondents and imposed no sanction. No express finding of dishonesty was made against either Respondent.