A former employee of a law group raised concerns about its handling of clients’ money five years before its eventual collapse.
Sheffield-based PM Law Ltd closed suddenly on 2 February, leaving hundreds of employees out of work and many clients stranded mid-transaction.
An independent review revealed concerns about the group had been raised to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) as early as 2021 and “obvious red flags” had been missed during an investigation.
In a statement published this week, the SRA said it was committed to changing the way it regulated firms, adding: “Opportunities were missed to act sooner and we want to prevent that happening again.”
The PM Law group consisted of 11 companies, 25 offices and more than 30 trading names, and included firms such as Proddow Mackay, Butterworths Solicitors and WB Pennine Solicitors.
The group had offices across Yorkshire, Cumbria, Berkshire, Derbyshire and London and specialised in personal injury, wills and conveyancing.
The SRA previously said as much as £39.5m in client money could be missing from the PM Law group in what it believed to be a “sophisticated suspected fraud”.
The firm’s head of finance, Jonathon Bostock, has since been banned from law firms, with the SRA alleging he had allowed improper client account withdrawals and had fabricated account balances. The BBC previously reached out to Bostock and PM Law Ltd for comment but did not receive a response.
