Dingwall lawyer found guilty of misconduct
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A DINGWALL lawyer has been barred from practising unsupervised for two years after he was found guilty of misconduct.
A Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal found John Bartlett (54) failed to check if clients were involved in money laundering or terrorism.
It said that issues had come to light during an inspection in 2011, when it was found that no risk assessment had been carried out for some transactions and no verification was obtained over the origin of funds received.
The inspection also found that the practice’s trial balance “did not include all the figures required”, adding that the issue over trial balances had been raised at two previous inspections. A later inspection in October 2015 also “raised a number of serious concerns”.
The Law Society of Scotland’s investigation decided there had been four breaches of regulations designed to protect against the risk of money laundering. It also found that staff had not been given sufficient training to spot money laundering or terrorist financing if they encountered it.
The tribunal ruled that it was “satisfied that the respondent’s many failures over a period of five years were a serious and reprehensible departure from the standards of competent and reputable solicitors, particularly when he had failed to address the matters drawn to his attention in 2011”.
In mitigation the tribunal heard that Mr Bartlett, of Heights of Inchvannie, Strathpeffer, had spent money on new accounting software before his practice closed in 2018 “and had tried to tackle the problems highlighted in the inspections”.
The submission added that, at the time of the breaches, his assistant left the business and Mr Bartlett’s health had suffered. And it argued there “was no risk to client funds”.
Ruling the matter was “mid-range on the scale of misconduct” the tribunal barred Mr Bartlett from working in the industry unsupervised for two years.
Full findings of the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal are published on its website.
