Ronald George Paterson

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

Ronald George Paterson, a director at Eversheds, was alleged to have breached SRA Principles 2 and 5 and paragraphs 1.2 and 1.4 of the Code by secretly listening in (via a phone call with his client) to a company board meeting from which he had been excluded. His client, Mr Davidson, a director in dispute with the board, had invited him to listen so he could receive real-time legal advice. The SRA argued this amounted to eavesdropping/espionage, abuse of position, and misleading the company. The Tribunal found Paterson had not 'attended' the meeting (he could not be seen, could not participate, and was not listed as attendee), that his client was fully entitled to receive legal advice in real time and to relay what was said, and that there was no discernible difference between listening to a recording afterwards and hearing it live. The SRA failed to prove any subjective intent to take unfair advantage or any misleading act/omission. All allegations were dismissed. Paterson sought costs of £101,740.20 but the Tribunal, applying Flynn Pharma and Baxendale-Walker, found the proceedings were not improperly or unreasonably brought and made no order as to costs.