Ejaz Ahmad

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

Ejaz Ahmad, a solicitor and partner at LG Law Chambers, faced eight allegations arising from improper payments of over £1.2 million from client account, unredeemed mortgage charges, failure to keep accounting records, lack of compliance officers, failure to cooperate with the SRA inspection, and giving false/misleading information. The Tribunal found allegations 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.7 proved beyond reasonable doubt, but dismissed allegation 1.5 (sole practitioner) and allegation 1.8 (false/misleading information). The Tribunal expressly did NOT find dishonesty proved, finding instead a lack of integrity, as it could not be sure the Respondent made all transfers or knew the payments were improper. He had treated himself as an 'honorary' partner and abdicated his responsibilities. The Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered costs of £20,000. (The SRA later succeeded on cross-appeal at the High Court, which found dishonesty.)

Duties found breached:

• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports
• Competence
• No improper use of client money
• Proper basis for allegations
• Self-report to the regulator

Aggravating factors:

• Permitted improper payment of over £1.2 million of client money to unconnected third parties
• Had suspicions about Sale 2 yet failed to make proper enquiries or change account access
• Granted unsupervised access to the client account to ST who was no longer a partner
• Complete abdication of his duties and responsibilities as a partner
• Significant harm to clients and to the reputation of the profession; Compensation Fund claims of approx £1.8 million, over £1.2 million paid out

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary findings
• Appeared to have been drawn into the firm and was a victim of deceit by others who impersonated him
• Naivety and limited ability to manage a firm
• Ill health including multiple physical ailments and depression

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]