Miguel Jose Roure Lopez

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

Miguel Jose Roure Lopez, a Registered European Lawyer, faced Rule 5 and Rule 7 allegations. Under Rule 5 he sent misleading emails to a client's debtor (FO) purporting to give the firm's client account details when they were his own personal/business account, caused an inappropriate transfer of client funds into his own account rather than the firm's client account, and misled his firm about the transfer. Under Rule 7 he permitted transfers totalling £61,285 from an ECS Ltd (BBVA) account and £12,656.89 from its PayPal account to his own accounts without his client CGG's consent, failed to advise CGG about purportedly invested monies, and borrowed £47,000 and €9,100 from CGG where there was an own-interest conflict without CGG obtaining independent advice. All allegations were proved beyond reasonable doubt, with express dishonesty findings on allegations 1.1-1.3 (Rule 5) and 1.1-1.3 (Rule 7). The Respondent did not attend; the Tribunal proceeded in absence and rejected his jurisdictional challenges (res judicata, criminal prejudiciality, EU Judgments Regulation). Given the seriousness and dishonesty, the Tribunal struck him off the Register of European Lawyers and ordered costs of £57,535.98.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Act in the client's best interests
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty at the heart of the misconduct
• Misconduct was deliberate, calculated and repeated over a period of time
• Characterised by concealment and attempts to deflect blame onto others
• Personal financial benefit/gain
• Breach of position of trust towards firm, client, debtor and others
• Experienced lawyer operating at partner level
• Substantial harm - misappropriation of funds, ongoing litigation in Spain
• Unsubstantiated attacks on witnesses
• Complete lack of insight; sought to block process with flawed jurisdictional arguments

Mitigating factors:

• The £183,000 was repaid within a few days (albeit under pressure from the firm)
• No previous disciplinary record