Richard Gregory Barca

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

Richard Gregory Barca, a solicitor at Wilson Barca LLP, faced two allegations. Allegation 1.1 concerned allowing misleading submissions to be made in mitigation at his January 2019 Tribunal hearing implying his money-lending to a client was a one-off. The Tribunal found only the submission at 1.1.3 (that 'nothing of a similar nature has arisen') misleading, breaching Principle 6 in respect of Clients P, I and J; it dismissed the remaining sub-allegations and the alleged breaches of Outcomes 5.1/5.2 and Principles 1 and 2. Allegation 1.2, entering into financial arrangements with clients (A, B, C, K, M) giving rise to a significant risk of an own interest conflict, was found proved as a breach of Outcome 3.4 and Principle 6, but not as a lack of integrity under Principle 2. Both dishonesty and recklessness allegations were expressly dismissed. The Tribunal imposed a £30,000 fine (band 4) and £20,000 costs, with no practice restrictions.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Previous appearance before the Tribunal in 2019 for similar money-lending/own interest conflict misconduct (fined £20,000)
• Prior reprimand in 2015
• Deliberate, calculated and repeated conduct
• Very experienced solicitor who ought to have known conduct breached obligations, especially after 2019 proceedings
• Some arrangements (Clients K and M) occurred only months after the 2019 hearing
• Motivated in part by possibility of personal gain

Mitigating factors:

• Motivated by desire to assist clients in financial difficulty facing loss of homes/businesses
• No evidence of direct harm to clients; clients gave supportive evidence
• Did not profit from misconduct / in some cases out of pocket
• Co-operation with the investigation
• Positive character witnesses and testimonials
• Some matters were known to the SRA at the time of the 2019 proceedings but not acted upon

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