Simon Biancardi

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

Simon Biancardi, a BC sole practitioner in corporate, commercial and real estate law, entered a Rule 3-7.1 consent agreement admitting professional misconduct across numerous interrelated files between 2017 and 2021. He repeatedly failed to fulfil his trust account gatekeeper duties by not making reasonable inquiries about unusual transactions (excess funds, offshore payments, funds directed to unconnected entities), failed to comply with client ID and verification rules across 16 files, and acted in a conflict of interest by representing both borrower and lender in a loan transaction. He was aggravated by ignoring advice given in a compliance audit. No dishonesty was found; he claimed no knowledge of clients' alleged illegal activities. He consented to a six-month suspension plus undertakings restricting trust accounts and real estate practice.<}(Note: The final response above contains a stray character; corrected below.)</br>{

Duties found breached:

• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material

Aggravating factors:

• Continued failure to obtain required client identification/verification for a corporate client even after being specifically advised during the Law Society compliance audit

Mitigating factors:

• No prior professional conduct record
• Remorse and admission of misconduct
• Ceased taking new clients since July 2021
• Declined to act on real estate matters since October 2022
• Left private practice entirely in October 2023
• In process of closing trust account and gave undertakings