Wingate & Anor v The Solicitors Regulation Authority

Integrity is broader than honesty. In a professional code, it denotes adherence to the ethical standards of the profession. It is assessed in the light of the professional’s knowledge and conduct, and does not require proof of dishonesty.

A solicitor may breach the duty to maintain public trust through carelessness only where it amounts to manifest incompetence, rather than ordinary professional negligence. Allegations of dishonesty must be clearly and separately pleaded, but a regulator may confine such an allegation to the later deployment of misleading documents rather than their earlier creation.

The test for dishonesty requires findings about the individual’s actual knowledge or belief as to the facts, followed by an objective assessment against the standards of ordinary decent people.

Three conjoined appeals arose from disciplinary proceedings against solicitors.

Mr Wingate and Mr Evans appealed against Holman J’s decision allowing the SRA’s appeal from their acquittals by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. The allegations concerned a £900,000 Axiom loan advanced under a written agreement which the firm did not intend to observe.

The SRA appealed against Mostyn J’s decision allowing Mr Malins’s appeal from findings that he had created and deployed backdated funding documents in litigation, acted without integrity and acted dishonestly when deploying them.

The central common issue was the meaning of integrity under Principles 2 and 6 of the SRA Code of Conduct, and its relationship with honesty and dishonesty.

1. The court dismissed Mr Wingate’s appeal, allowed Mr Evans’s appeal, and allowed the SRA’s appeal in the Malins proceedings.

2. The court followed Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd (trading as Crockfords Club) [2017] UKSC 67. A tribunal must first ascertain the person’s actual knowledge or belief as to the relevant facts. It must then decide objectively whether the conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary decent people. The person need not appreciate that those standards regarded the conduct as dishonest.

3. Integrity is not synonymous with honesty. In a professional setting it requires adherence to the profession’s ethical standards. It may be absent although dishonesty is not proved. The professional’s knowledge and state of mind remain relevant to the factual assessment. Principle 6 serves a different purpose: it protects public confidence in the profession. Carelessness breaches that Principle only when it exceeds ordinary negligence and amounts to manifest incompetence.

4. Mr Wingate knowingly signed a sham funding agreement to obtain the release of £900,000, despite knowing that his firm would not comply with it. His honest belief that a replacement agreement would later be made did not excuse conduct falling below solicitors’ ethical standards. The arrangement was also manifestly incompetent and undermined public confidence. He breached Principles 2 and 6.

5. Mr Evans had reasonably allocated responsibility for financial management to Mr Wingate and had made adequate, although not full, inquiries. His failure to read the agreement was careless, but it did not amount to manifest incompetence. The finding that he breached Principle 6 was set aside.

6. In Mr Malins’s case, dishonesty was properly alleged only in relation to deploying the backdated documents. Their creation and their later dispatch were distinct acts. The tribunal was entitled to find lack of integrity in creating the documents, and dishonesty when he sent them out as purported copies of documents created and served fourteen months earlier. There was no unfair unpleaded finding of dishonesty and no material failure to consider character or medical evidence.

7. The court also upheld the ordinary appellate costs approach under Civil Procedure Rules rule 44.2.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In [2018] EWCA Civ 366, dismissed Mr Wingate’s appeal, allowed Mr Evans’s appeal, and allowed the SRA’s appeal against Mostyn J.

• High Court, Administrative Court (Holman J): Allowed the SRA’s appeal from the acquittals of Mr Wingate and Mr Evans on contested charges, substituted findings of breach, and remitted sanction to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

• High Court, Administrative Court (Mostyn J): Allowed Mr Malins’s appeal from the tribunal’s findings and striking-off order, and remitted the case for reconsideration. That decision was set aside by this court.

• Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal: Acquitted Mr Wingate and Mr Evans on the contested allegations, subject to admitted Accounts Rules breaches. Separately, found the allegations against Mr Malins proved and ordered that he be struck off the Roll.