Keith Guy William Armstrong

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

Keith Guy William Armstrong, a partner at Dundas & Wilson, accessed a confidential and commercially sensitive Tender document belonging to competitor Firm X (found at home, prepared by his partner Ms B) without consent, copied and adapted parts of it into his own firm's Tender for a waste management project worth over £500,000, and allowed it to be submitted fraudulently/deceitfully as his firm's own work. The plagiarism was detected by Renfrewshire Council. He admitted the conduct once discovered and cooperated fully. The Tribunal found professional misconduct at the very serious end of the scale, noting his integrity was brought into question and his conduct was fraudulent and deceitful, and struck him from the Roll of Solicitors. Though the term 'dishonesty' features in the Bolton citation, the express findings referenced fraud/deceit and integrity; no separate express dishonesty finding label was recorded. No compensation was awarded; publicity anonymised Firm X and the current employer.

Duties found breached:

• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No acting against a former client
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper solicitation or touting

Aggravating factors:

• Deliberate conduct for personal survival
• Involved commercially sensitive and confidential information
• Adaptation of text to cover up plagiarism
• Multiple instances (27 passages) copied over 12 pages
• Did not admit conduct until plagiarism was discovered
• Allowed Tender to be submitted knowing of the plagiarism
• Contract worth in excess of £500,000; potential to damage reputation of both firms and his partner Ms B
• Breached trust of own partners, another firm's partners, and his personal partner

Mitigating factors:

• Full cooperation with the proceedings and early admission once discovered
• Pled guilty from the outset via Joint Minute
• Remorse and insight shown
• Conduct out of character and may have been an aberration
• Working in a highly pressurised environment affecting his mental health
• Personal circumstances including separation/divorce and work overload
• Sought medical treatment
• Positive testimonials and medical reports
• Offered undertaking not to return to private practice