Carter-Ruck attorney Claire Frances Gill has been cleared of wrongdoing by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).

As reported by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism on December 12th;

Gill was cleared of all wrongdoing on Friday when the Solicitor’s Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) found that the prosecution’s evidence was “plainly insufficient” and that the case was based on “hindsight not evidence of professional misconduct”.

Carter-Ruck has indicated it intends to seek costs from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, estimated to be around £1 million GBP.

Unfortunately the SDT’s finding removes all responsibility for lawyers to consider, before sending baseless legal threats, whether there is any merit to subject matter being targeted.

In fact Gill’s attorney went so far as to argue

Either [a solicitor] knows that his client’s factual case is false or he doesn’t… But if he doesn’t know his client’s factual case is false, he is bound to advance that case on behalf of his client whatever suspicions he may have.

This creates an obvious loophole where any lawyer charged with misconduct can pretend to not have not known whether claims made by their client are false. In other words, UK lawyers need do no due-diligence into their clients before sending out threatening letters on their behalf.

In response to today’s decision, Helen Taylor, deputy director of Spotlight on Corruption, said:

“By dismissing this case before it even starts, the tribunal appears to be giving the green light for libel lawyers to be used as guns for hire, allowing lawyers to disavow ethical responsibility for how their services are being abused.

In the case of OneCoin, Gill has successfully claimed she didn’t know it was a Ponzi scheme.

The legal threat Gill sent with respect to this case was sent in April 2017. By this stage action had been taken against OneCoin by authorities in Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria, Sweden, Latvia, Austria, Colombia, China, Germany, Bangladesh, Belgium, India, Poland, Norway, Vietnam, Italy, Hungary, Nigeria, Slovenia, Uganda, Croatia and Kazakhstan.

Perhaps most damning of all, UK authorities announced an investigation into OneCoin in September 2016.

All Gill had to do was spend a few minutes researching her client to at the very least raise suspicion. If I’m being honest she probably did, but none of that matters now that he SJT has absolved Gill of any liability.

Perhaps ironically, OneCoin had already collapsed by the time Gill sent out her legal threat. How much of the $4 billion stolen through OneCoin Carter-Ruck collected in legal fees is unclear.

The SJT’s finding is unfortunately only the latest example of UK authorities’ disastrous handling of OneCoin related fraud.

Despite UK lawyers and companies having played an integral role in assisting OneCoin founder Ruja Ignatova, to date not a single UK resident has faced any repercussions.

At the very least UK victims might have found solace in a lawyer helping enable OneCoin fraud facing justice. The SJT decision has now extinguished that possibility.