Richard James Morris; Candey Limited

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

Richard Morris, a solicitor at Candey Limited, faced allegations relating to handling of c.£24m in settlement monies received in June 2015. The SRA alleged failures to obtain adequate source of funds information under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 and misuse of the client account as a banking facility. Mr Morris admitted all allegations against him; the Firm denied all allegations. The Tribunal determined that Enhanced Due Diligence was not required in the circumstances, so it found the MLR-based allegations (1.1, 1.2 against Mr Morris and 3.1-3.3 against the Firm) not proved and dismissed them despite Mr Morris's admissions. The Tribunal found only allegation 1.3 (breach of Rule 14.5 - using client account as a banking facility) proved against Mr Morris. There was no finding of dishonesty - the misconduct was found to be inadvertent due to lack of understanding of Rule 14.5. Mr Morris was fined £6,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 costs (reduced from an apportioned £15,957.52 to reflect delay and the dismissed allegations). The Firm's allegations were all dismissed with no order as to costs, as the Tribunal found the Firm's conduct in defending was unreasonable.

Duties found breached:

• No improper use of client money
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Mr Morris was an experienced solicitor with direct control of the circumstances of his misconduct
• Large sums involved (£7,541,716.18 of payments with no underlying legal transaction)
• Harm caused to the reputation of the profession

Mitigating factors:

• Misconduct was inadvertent due to lack of understanding of Rule 14.5
• Single episode in an otherwise unblemished career
• Demonstrated remorse and insight
• Early admissions made from the outset of the investigation and maintained throughout
• No financial loss to the client
• Application of Rule 14.5 was generally not well understood at the time
• Unreasonable delay by the SRA in bringing proceedings