Decision record
Owen Kirkwood Clunie
Allegation / charges
Struck off, Restitution Ordered | Disciplinary Committee decision delivered September 28, 2013. | Appeal part allowed - Court of Appeal decision delivered September 22, 2014. | Struck off again - Disciplinary Committee Complaint 187 of 2012 decision delivered January 24, 2015 View …
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The Respondent was retained to purchase a property for the Complainant, who paid him $600,000 for a deposit and legal fees to be paid to the vendor's attorney. The Respondent misappropriated the funds, the property was sold to another, and he defaulted on repeated written promises to repay $700,000. The Panel found the complaint proved beyond reasonable doubt and expressly found dishonesty and misappropriation, breaching Canons VII(b) and I(b). Applying Bolton v Law Society, the Respondent was struck off, ordered to pay restitution of $700,000 with 6% interest from 31 July 2012, and $20,000 costs.
Duties found breached:
Aggravating factors:
- Misappropriation of client funds
- Significant amount to a client of humble means
- Complainant lost the house he intended to purchase and was displaced from family
- Repeated broken promises to repay
Duties engaged
Other decisions involving this respondent
Matched by respondent name — may include a different person with the same name.
Documents
Source: https://www.generallegalcouncil.org/judgement/owen-kirkwood-clunie-complaint-no-187-of-2012/