Matthew Conway Ledvina

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

Mr Ledvina, admitted as a solicitor in 2007 but non-practising and living/working outside the jurisdiction, pleaded guilty in the USA in 2019 to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud (a 'pump and dump' scheme involving creating nominee entities to conceal share ownership). He was sentenced in the US to 30 months' probation, fined $50,000 and ordered to pay restitution of $1,908,583.26 jointly and severally. The SRA brought proceedings before the SDT. Mr Ledvina did not attend but submitted written representations denying wrongdoing and dishonesty, arguing his name/signature had been misused and that the US conviction should not be treated as conclusive proof. The Tribunal proceeded in his absence, treated the US conviction as conclusive proof of the underlying facts (following Rak-Latos), and rejected his attempts to go behind the conviction. It found all allegations proved, including dishonesty under the Ivey test, and found no exceptional circumstances or mitigating factors. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £3,675.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty
• Conviction for a serious offence (conspiracy to commit securities fraud)
• Serious harm to individual investors who lost substantial sums
• High damage to reputation of the profession internationally and domestically
• Full culpability as knowing part of the conspiracy