Jermaine Ryan Simms

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

The Respondent, an attorney of 10 years standing, gave a written, irrevocable professional undertaking to Dabdoub Dabdoub & Co to pay US$32,500 on 30 September 2008 to settle arrears of rent owed by Carlos Hill for use of the Complainant's premises. He gave the undertaking relying on assurances from Hill's attorney (Yvette Sterling) that he would be put in funds, despite being expressly warned not to do so without funds in hand. The undertaking was not honoured and no payment was made in over two years. The Panel refused the complainant's application to withdraw and rejected allegations of bias and unfairness. It found the undertaking was given in his professional capacity and its breach constituted professional misconduct under Canon VI(d). The conduct was described as 'dishonourable and unbecoming' but no express finding of dishonesty was made. He was struck off the Roll, ordered to pay restitution of US$32,500 plus 6% interest, and costs of J$100,000.

Duties found breached:

• No taking unfair advantage
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Respondent was expressly warned by Abraham Dabdoub not to give the undertaking unless he had the money in hand, yet gave it anyway
• Respondent was an experienced attorney of 10 years standing, not inexperienced as assumed
• No payment whatsoever made in the more than 2 years since the undertaking fell due
• Reliance on a third party's promise (Yvette Sterling) and an unlinked statement of account provided no excuse

Mitigating factors:

• The Panel expressly found there were no mitigating circumstances to excuse the failure to comply

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]