Kessar Nabi

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

Kessar Nabi, a sole practitioner at Nabi Solicitors and the firm's COLP and COFA, faced six allegations arising from a forensic investigation. The Tribunal found proved that between July 2016 and May 2017 he made payments from client account when there were insufficient funds and made over/duplicate transfers from client to office account, causing a client account shortage of £31,573.97 which the books failed to show. It found he acted dishonestly (applying the Ivey test), using client monies to fund the firm and his personal expenditure while approaching his overdraft limit. He failed to replace the shortage, failed to carry out reconciliations, ran the firm in serious financial difficulty (debts over £115,000 including £57,454.79 to HMRC) attempting to settle debts with worthless Promissory Notes, failed to notify the SRA promptly of financial difficulties, and failed to cooperate with the FI Officer. The Respondent did not attend and advanced no mitigation. The Tribunal found the misconduct at the highest level, involving repeated misuse of client money and lack of insight, and ordered him struck off the Roll with costs of £10,379.55.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• Firm governance, systems and compliance
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty
• Misconduct was deliberate, calculated and repeated
• Misconduct continued over a significant period of time
• Respondent knew or ought to have known he was in material breach of his obligations
• Motivated by self-interest and personal financial gain
• Breach of trust to clients and creditors
• Element of concealment through failure to reconcile ledgers
• Direct control as sole practitioner, COLP and COFA