Decision record
(unnamed respondent)
Allegation / charges
Appeals
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
James Prusram Ramdhun, COLP and supervising partner at Clapham Law LLP, appealed against an SRA Adjudication Panel decision finding he breached an undertaking by paying out £37,544.54 of sale proceeds and that he loaned a client £38,944.84 at 8% interest via his own company, creating an own interest conflict. The Adjudication Panel had imposed a £7,946 penalty and £1,350 costs. On appeal (by way of review under s.44E), the Tribunal held the appellant failed to discharge the burden of showing the decision was wrong or affected by procedural irregularity. The findings concerned lack of integrity, not dishonesty. The appeal was dismissed, the original order affirmed, and the appellant ordered to pay appeal costs of £16,555.
Duties found breached:
Duties engaged
- No abuse of process or coercive powers
- Proper basis for allegations
- Integrity
- Professional independence
- No taking unfair advantage
- Fair dealing with unrepresented parties
- No bribery or improper gifts
- Personal probity and fitness to practise
- Uphold public trust in the profession
- Act in the client's best interests
- Advise objectively, not a mere conduit
- Fair, reasonable and lawful fees
- No own-interest conflict
- No conflict between current clients
- No improper benefit, loan or bequest
- Honour professional undertakings