Donovan Occonor Malcolm

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

The respondent attorney Donovan Malcolm represented a property vendor and received a refundable deposit of $820,000 from the purchaser (Complainant). When the Complainant could not secure financing, the deposit became refundable. Despite the Complainant's attorney requesting a refund and the respondent promising by email to refund it, he failed to do so. The Committee found him guilty of professional misconduct and ordered him struck off, with restitution of the deposit and costs. The respondent did not appear or make submissions. No express finding of dishonesty was recorded.

Duties found breached:

• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Respondent did not appear at the hearing
• Failed to make any submissions or affidavit in mitigation
• Failed to refund the deposit up to the date of hearing despite promising to do so

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_costs_amount=130000"]