SOLICITORS REGULATION AUTHORITY LIMITED v SOPHIE KHAN & Ors.

Where a party has been committed for contempt after failing to comply with an order requiring an act by a specified date, the court may make a fresh order fixing a new date for compliance. The application need not be dismissed merely because the draft order is expressed partly as a variation of the earlier order, provided its substance and reality are a new order. The court may proceed on the existing application where the relief sought is clear and requiring a fresh application would waste resources. In exercising its discretion to require delivery of client files following intervention into a legal practice, client consent is relevant but is not a precondition to access by the regulator. A fresh order may require access to an email account, subject to a mechanism for resolving disputes about whether particular communications fall within the documents required.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority applied for fresh compliance dates under orders made on 21 September 2021 requiring the defendants to deliver practice documents and provide access to an email account. The first defendant had been committed for contempt after failing to comply and had served a six-month sentence. The defendants argued that the application was procedurally defective because a fresh committal order, rather than a variation, was required, and opposed further relief on discretionary grounds, relying on alleged client preferences and uncertainty about the files. The court had to determine whether the application sought a fresh order and whether renewed delivery and access orders were appropriate.

1. Fresh order. The application was, in substance and reality, for a fresh order fixing new compliance dates, notwithstanding an occasional reference in the draft to variation of the earlier order. The order should preferably state the obligations in its own terms. The court rejected the preliminary objection and applied the guidance in Kumari v Jalal [1997] 1 WLR 97.
2. Further relief after contempt. The provision allowing the first defendant to purge her contempt formed part of the sentencing order. It did not determine that no further application for a fresh compliance order could be made. The court was entitled to consider renewed relief, and it would be disproportionate to require the SRA to begin again where the application and relief were sufficiently clear.
3. Client files. The SRA’s entitlement to inspect documents under paragraph 9 of schedule 1 to the Solicitors Act 1974 was independent of client consent. Consent was a factor relevant to the court’s discretion, but the evidence did not sufficiently establish the location or status of the files. The public interest in the regulator receiving documents relating to an intervened practice supported the order, and no serious client prejudice was identified.
4. Email access. Access to the specified email account was appropriate because it enabled the appointed agent to verify and read documents required by the earlier order. Since the account might contain communications unrelated to the intervened practice, the revised order had to include a mechanism, along the lines of the earlier protections, for resolving disputes about whether particular emails were listed items.
5. The application was granted. A fresh order was to be made in the same substantive terms, with new dates for compliance, and the parties were to seek agreement on protective drafting and the dates to be inserted.