By Ashley Young-
A solicitor of 28 years has been struck off and charged £28,000 in costs after recklessly allowing her firm to be used as a banking facility for two years.
Under the authority of Barbara Gribbin, the negligent solicitor allowed sums of more than £8m to pass through the client account of Lancashire firm Iceblue Legal under the ownership of Barbara Gribbin.
The SRA told The Eye Of Media.Com that for such amount of money to go through Gribbin’s law firm without her conducting due diligence to know where it came from, she could have unwittingly assisted money laundering .
The tribunal concluded that Gribbin had acted with a lack of integrity, allowed her independence to be compromised, failed to act in the best interests of clients and had acted dishonestly.
The tribunal heard Ms Gribbins had paid out sums of money before cheques had been cleared by the firm’s bank. They mostly happened on the same day deposits were made.
Gribbin also withheld up to £40,000 which should have been sent to clients, in order to help the firm and did not replace the missing cash for over a year.
Copies of bank statements for the Firm’s client account for the periods 4 January 2016 to 17 August 2018 showed that during the period from 4 January 2016 until 22 May 2018, £8,048,706.99 was transferred from the Firm’s client account to Company 1, Company 2 and Mr AD. These payments were made by electronic transfer and the payee was identified on the bank statements.
The bank statements also demonstrated that the same sums transferred out of the Firm’s
client account had been deposited into the Firm’s client account on the same day the
transfer out was made. This therefore appeared to be a “cheque clearing scheme.
The tribunal said: ‘Her dishonest behaviour in repeatedly using client funds inappropriately and at times for the benefit of her firm meant that [she] could not be trusted.’
The tribunal was satisfied that the Respondent had breached Principle 2 of the SRA Principles 2011 (“the Principles”) and had acted with a lack of integrity. She had failed to act with moral soundness, rectitude and a steady adherence to an ethical code. She knew there was no underlying transaction and that neither Mr AD nor his companies were clients of her Firm.
The fact she had allowed them to pay cheques into her Firm’s client account and made transfers back to them for corresponding amounts when she knew the cheques had not cleared, was alarming.
”Members of the profession acting with integrity would not allow client funds to be paid out to a third party in the absence of any underlying transaction, especially after the third party’s cheques had bounced, the Trubunal said. Where there was any shortage, solicitors acting with integrity would immediately replace client funds
Gribbin admitted agreeing to the cheque clearing scheme which she said she knew was wrong, though she claimed to gain no benefit from it. She accepted responsibility but also said she felt ‘shat on from a great height’.
Gribbin told the SRA she had been using her own savings borrowing money to boost up her business for a year.
An SRA Spokesperson told Te Eye Of Media.Com:
”This is about solicitors taking proper due diligence in safeguarding against the risk of money laundering. Solicitors handle lots of money and are an attractive proposition for money laundering. Solicitors who do not take the proper measures of due diligence could be assisting drug dealers or money laundering. I We have taken 60 cases to the SDT and had 40 solicitors struck off in the last fifty years.
Part of proper Due Diligence is for solicitors to know where money is coming from and what it is being used for. Solicitors need to properly guard against that happening . Solicitors that do not conduct the required due diligence open up the risk that they could be unwittingly helping money launderers”.