Kwame Agyekum Siaw

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

Kwame Agyekum Siaw, a solicitor and partner at Mountain Partnership Solicitors, provided his personal bank account details to Client K and received £500 for an immigration matter into his personal account, failing to account for it (or part of it) to the firm (allegation 1.1), and in a 22 May 2017 email told the SRA he had not received payment of costs into his personal account when this was untrue/misleading (allegation 1.2). The SDT found both allegations proved, including breaches of Principles 2, 6 and 7 and Rule 14.1 of the SRA Accounts Rules, but found dishonesty NOT proved, imposing a £10,000 fine plus £3,371 costs. On the SRA's appeal, the High Court substituted a finding of dishonesty and quashed the fine, ordering that the Respondent be struck off the Roll of Solicitors.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Segregate client money
• Cooperate openly with regulators

Aggravating factors:

• Clients (Mr and Mrs K) were vulnerable at the material time
• Misled the regulator
• Failed to account for client money into a personal bank account

Mitigating factors:

• Motivation to help a friend
• Conduct not planned/calculated and of short duration (a few weeks)
• Otherwise unblemished career of over 16 years
• Genuinely contrite
• Limited financial loss to client