Zivancevic v Solicitors Regulation Authority

Professional integrity is broader than honesty. A finding that conduct was not dishonest does not prevent a finding that it lacked integrity. A breach of an accounting rule does not automatically establish lack of integrity, but may do so where the rule is important or the breach occurred in circumstances inconsistent with professional ethical standards. Tribunals must assess the conduct in the context of the profession and should not impose unrealistically high standards. Public trust is a distinct professional obligation directed to preserving confidence in the legal profession. An appellate court reviewing disciplinary sanction should interfere only where the penalty is clearly inappropriate.

This was an appeal by Mr Alexander Zivancevic, a solicitor, against a decision of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal dated 31 January 2019. The tribunal found that he had breached Principles 2 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011 after requesting a client to pay £900 into his personal account, failing to notify the firm and failing to account for the money. It found dishonesty unproved, but imposed a £15,000 fine and costs.

The appeal challenged the findings of lack of integrity and undermining public trust, and the level of the fine. The central issues were whether the tribunal had properly applied the principles governing professional integrity and public confidence, and whether the sanction was clearly inappropriate.

1. Appeal dismissed. The tribunal’s findings of misconduct and its £15,000 fine were upheld.
2. Under Wingate & Evans v SRA [2018] EWCA Civ 366, integrity is broader than honesty and involves adherence to the ethical standards of the profession. It applies to conduct as well as statements. Professional people are not required to be paragons of virtue, and a minor accounting breach does not automatically amount to a lack of integrity.
3. Whether a breach lacks integrity is for the specialist disciplinary tribunal to assess. A breach may amount to lack of integrity where the rule breached is particularly important, or where the circumstances of the breach are inconsistent with the ethical standards governing the profession. The tribunal must not assume automatically that every rule breach establishes lack of integrity, but that was not what occurred here.
4. The tribunal was entitled to regard probity and transparency concerning money as central to solicitors’ services. Requesting payment into a solicitor’s personal account, followed by failure to notify the firm and account for the money, was sufficiently serious to constitute lack of integrity. The fact that the conduct was not dishonest did not alter that conclusion.
5. Principle 6 concerns preservation of the reputation of and public confidence in the legal profession. Having upheld the integrity finding, the court held that there was no realistic basis for challenging the related finding that the conduct undermined public trust.
6. On sanction, the applicable test was whether the fine was clearly inappropriate: Salsbury v Law Society [2009] 1 WLR 1286. The tribunal was entitled to place weight on the seriousness of the misconduct, moderately high culpability, the failure to rectify the arrangement, and the lack of meaningful insight. The fine was not clearly inappropriate.
7. The parties were directed to seek agreement on consequential orders.

• High Court (Administrative Court): appeal from the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal dismissed; findings of misconduct and the £15,000 fine upheld.
• Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal: on 31 January 2019, found breaches of Principles 2 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011, found dishonesty unproved, imposed a £15,000 fine and ordered costs.