Ian Muirhead: Helping solicitors demonstrate due-diligence

The Law Society responded immediately, issuing an indignant press release announcing it was taking the unprecedented step of advising solicitors to ignore what the SRA had done and to abide by the principle of independence, as being a fundamental tenet of the profession. Relations between the Society and the regulator had been uneasy ever since the Society had been obliged to spin off its regulatory arm, but this marked a low point in the relationship. The reason for the SRA decision was twofold - the first being the confusion arising from the then Financial Services Authority's inven...