The Solicitors Regulation Authority has fined a former London law firm partner for a second time in three years, after finding he channelled almost £700,000 of personal and family money into a client transaction to head off a negligence claim against himself and his firm.
John Charles Wright, who qualified in 1991 and was a partner at Ashley Wilson Solicitors, was instructed in February 2019 to act on the purchase of a property’s leasehold and freehold for a company wholly owned by an existing client.
After contracts for the leasehold exchanged, Wright discovered the ground rent was significantly higher than expected, prompting the bridging lender to cut its offer by £242,000.
Rather than advise his client of the shortfall and the conflict it created, Wright and a relative transferred a combined £250,000 into the client company that June, followed by a further £550,000 from his own account after completion to discharge the loan.
He continued acting on the freehold purchase until leaving the firm in February 2020, later receiving over £905,000 back from the company — a return the SRA calculated left him with a potential profit of roughly £10,500.
The regulator found Wright’s conduct breached SRA Principles on conflicts of interest and client-first dealing, and that he failed to advise the client to seek independent legal advice or to disclose his own financial stake in the deal.
The settlement, reached as a regulatory settlement agreement rather than a referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, is the second SRA action this week naming a firm principal directly, following its disqualification of former PM Law finance chief Jonathon Bostock.
Wright had previously appeared before the tribunal in 2023, which fined him £32,000 for secretly acting on the opposing side of a property deal while Ashley Wilson represented the buyer – a disciplinary route governed by the Solicitors Act 1974.
An undisclosed personal investment can convert a routine client matter into an own-interest breach within weeks, regardless of whether the client suffers an actual loss as firms managing conflict checks on connected transactions now have reason to note.
The SRA explicitly noted there was no financial harm to the client and accepted Wright’s conduct was reckless rather than grossly reckless, factors that kept the fine at £5,000 despite what it described as intentional, repeated misconduct over five months. Wright was also ordered to pay costs of £6,200.
The case adds to a run of SRA settlement agreements this year addressing own-interest conflicts rather than referring solicitors straight to the tribunal, a route the regulator increasingly uses where means and cooperation limit the appropriate sanction.
Compliance teams reviewing repeat-offender risk will note that a prior Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal sanction did not, on its own, rule out a further regulatory settlement with Ashley Wilson’s former partner.