SRA fails to prove its claim solicitor acted dishonestly
A solicitor who was accused of lying about her anti-money laundering policy has her name cleared after a tribunal.
Maya Nisa-Zaman was brought before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal who questioned her on her firm, MZ Law Solicitors over their compliant risk assessment.
When questioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2019, it was alleged Nisa-Zaman had acted dishonestly.
During this questioning Nisa-Zaman was asked whether her firm had a compliant firm-wide risk assessment, a requirement under anti-money laundering regulations.
These regulations required firms to take steps to identify signs of money laundering, and act accordingly.
Nisa-Zaman answered “yes” when asked by the SRA if her firm had this in place.
The SRA then followed this up with a written risk assessment, which Nisa-Zaman responded to with an uncompleted SRA form, which the SRA argued was an attempt to deliberately mislead them.
They stated that her firm had no risk assessment in place and so was in breach of the regulations.
The firm in question deals mostly in residential and domestic conveyancing and possesses a small team.
Nisa-Zaman’s representatives argued she was not good with technology and her clients were not mainly wealthy, high-risk investors and so were unlikely to present a risk to these measures.
Nisa-Zaman also maintained that a money-laundering risk assessment was in place from June 2017 which met all the AML regulations.
She maintained she never meant to deceive the SRA and had always put AML as one of her firms’ priorities.
The tribunal accepted her statements were factual and noted her exemplary disciplinary record. They stated:
“She was clearly a busy solicitor who was highly regarded by her peers in the profession and by others as illustrated by the character evidence called on her behalf.
She had an exemplary record and the files examined by the SRA during its investigation were found to be flawless.”
All allegations of wrongdoing were dropped.
