Natarajan Balachandran

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

Natarajan Balachandran, an unregistered barrister, was found guilty on three charges of professional misconduct. While practising as an Advocate and Solicitor in Malaysia, he dishonestly failed to return a USD 150,000 deposit paid by a client to obtain a USD 3,000,000 loan that he failed to secure. He was struck off the Malaysian Roll in March 2016 following a finding of dishonesty, and failed to report the disciplinary action to the BSB. The Tribunal, sitting in his absence, expressly found him dishonest and disbarred him, ordering that no practising certificate be issued.

Duties found breached:

• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Cooperate openly with regulators
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Significant sum of money (USD 150,000) lost to the client
• Judgment debt unpaid after agreeing repayment in October 2017
• No repayment in 8 years
• No explanation provided by the respondent
• Struck off the Roll of Advocates and Solicitors in Malaysia for dishonesty