Craig Cooper; Erich Kurtz

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

The SRA brought three allegations against two solicitors (Cooper and Kurtz), managers/owners of Barings Ltd, relating to the handling of Pay Day Loan mis-selling claims and (against Cooper only) a £230,500 client account payment without adequate Client Due Diligence. Allegations 1.1 (misleading statements), 1.2 (failure to obtain informed consent), and 2 (failure to assess merits of claims) were found not proved against both Respondents, largely because the SRA relied on hearsay evidence from aggrieved lenders and fabricated 'fake' claims, with no primary evidence from any dissatisfied clients (all client claims succeeded). Allegation 3 against Cooper was not proved because the payments were on account of costs, outside the scope of the MLRs 2017 per applicable Law Society Guidance. All allegations dismissed. Despite the starting point of no order as to costs under Baxendale-Walker and Tsang, the Tribunal found a good reason to depart: the SRA failed to reassess the evidential position when primary evidence could not be obtained yet proceeded to hearing without sufficient objective evidence. Costs of £20,000 (First Respondent) and £10,000 (Second Respondent) ordered against the SRA.