Written by The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s reported apology after a failed prosecution against Simon James Price raises a harder question than one costs order alone: how should a professional regulator be held to account when its own process appears to have identified weakness before proceedings were allowed to continue?
Publication snapshot
- The article considers the reported £180,000 costs order against the SRA after failed SDT proceedings against Simon James Price.
- The central issue is not merely that the case was withdrawn, but that an internal assessment reportedly questioned the basis for referral before late disclosure.
- Regulatory enforcement must protect the public, but it must also protect fairness, transparency and confidence in the disciplinary process.
- Complaint and enforcement pressures do not justify weak prosecutorial decision-making in individual cases.
- The reform route is better disclosure discipline, independent challenge of contested referrals and clearer public reporting on failed or criticised prosecutions.
Why the Price case matters
The SRA exists to regulate solicitors and firms in the public interest. That function necessarily includes investigation, enforcement and, where justified, referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Serious professional misconduct must be capable of being prosecuted.
The reported case of Simon James Price is troubling for a different reason. The concern is not simply that the SRA withdrew proceedings or that a disputed case did not reach a final contested determination. The concern is that the proceedings were reportedly pursued despite an internal investigator concluding that there was no proper basis for referral to the tribunal.
If that account is correct, the issue moves beyond ordinary litigation risk. It raises questions about internal decision-making, disclosure, prosecutorial judgment and the safeguards that should stop a weak disciplinary case becoming a prolonged professional ordeal.
The reported tribunal findings
The draft account states that the SDT ordered the SRA to pay £180,000 in costs after concluding that the proceedings against Price had been improperly brought. The proceedings concerned alleged due-diligence failures dating back more than a decade and were eventually withdrawn.
The most serious feature is the reported internal investigator’s report. The draft states that the report, dated May 2023, concluded that there was no proper basis for referral to the tribunal. It was reportedly not disclosed to Price until August 2024 and was omitted from the SRA’s June 2024 application to withdraw the case.
The quoted tribunal passage said that, due to the SRA’s conduct, a costs order should be made to ensure that the regulator acted in a fair, transparent and responsible manner. On that account, the case was not merely a failed prosecution. It was a case in which the regulator’s own handling became part of the public-interest issue.
A properly brought case fails because the tribunal is not satisfied on the evidence, the legal test is not met, or the matter is withdrawn for defensible reasons.
The regulator proceeds despite internal material suggesting that the case should not have been referred, or fails to disclose material needed for fairness.
Disclosure is not a technical afterthought
In professional discipline, disclosure is central to fairness. A solicitor facing prosecution is not simply defending a money claim. They may be defending their professional reputation, livelihood, practising future and standing in the profession.
Where the regulator holds internal material that undermines the basis for proceedings, the fairness question becomes acute. The person accused needs to know the case they must answer. They also need access to material that may show the case should not have been brought or continued.
A regulator may be entitled to investigate robustly and pursue serious allegations. But it should not treat adverse internal material as a procedural inconvenience. Where internal review raises a fundamental doubt about referral, that doubt must be confronted, documented and disclosed where fairness requires it.
How a disciplinary process can lose legitimacy
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The regulator receives or generates internal material that weakens the case.
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The case nevertheless continues, increasing cost, pressure and reputational risk for the respondent.
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The material is disclosed late, incompletely or only after key procedural steps have occurred.
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Confidence shifts from the merits of the case to the fairness of the regulator’s own conduct.
Broader trends: complaints and enforcement pressure
The Price case sits against a wider background of complaints, enforcement activity, anti-money laundering scrutiny and transparency compliance. The draft material suggests that service and first-tier complaints have risen, while conduct complaints have remained more stable.
It also points to intensified enforcement activity, including increased SDT referrals, AML-related fines and a reported fivefold rise in warning letters during 2023. A further performance snapshot suggests that AML compliance visits exceeded target, while transparency rule adherence fell short at 85%.
Those trends matter, but they do not answer the fairness problem. Higher complaint volumes do not justify weaker triage. More enforcement activity does not excuse late disclosure. Increased regulatory pressure does not make it acceptable to proceed with a case if the evidential basis has collapsed or was never properly established.
The accountability question
Professional regulators hold significant power. A referral to the SDT can change the trajectory of a person’s career before any final finding is made. Even if proceedings are withdrawn, the respondent may already have suffered years of anxiety, cost and reputational harm.
That is why accountability for the regulator matters. A costs order may provide partial financial recognition, but it does not fully answer the public-interest question. The more important issue is whether the same process failure can happen again.
An apology and a lessons-learned statement may be appropriate, but they are not sufficient on their own. The public, the profession and respondents in future cases need to know what changed: who reviews weak cases, who tests internal contrary findings, who controls disclosure, and who decides whether a prosecution remains justified.
The regulator investigates and prosecutes serious allegations where the evidence and public interest justify referral.
The regulator explains and corrects its own failures where its process causes unfairness or avoidable harm.
What reform should focus on
The lesson from the Price case should not be that the SRA should avoid difficult prosecutions. A regulator that is afraid to bring proper cases would fail the public. The lesson is that difficult prosecutions require stronger safeguards, not weaker standards.
Reform should focus on decision quality, disclosure discipline and independent challenge before a weak case becomes a damaging public process.
Process reforms
- Require documented reasons where a case proceeds despite internal contrary recommendations.
- Introduce independent review before referral where the evidence is old, contested or internally disputed.
- Strengthen disclosure controls for material that undermines the case or supports the respondent.
- Require withdrawal applications to explain material internal developments affecting the merits.
Accountability reforms
- Publish anonymised learning from failed or criticised prosecutions.
- Track cases where costs orders are made against the regulator.
- Report how lessons have changed case-screening and disclosure practice.
- Consider independent oversight where repeated procedural criticism arises.
Practical conclusion
The SRA must be able to bring serious disciplinary cases. The profession and the public need a regulator capable of acting where solicitors fall below proper standards.
But regulatory power is legitimate only when exercised fairly. If internal material undermines a prosecution, it must be confronted, disclosed where fairness requires it, and weighed before the respondent is exposed to avoidable cost and reputational harm.
The Price case is therefore not only about one solicitor or one costs order. It is about whether the regulator’s own systems are strong enough to prevent unfair prosecutions from reaching, or remaining before, the tribunal.
I am one of 217 complainants whom the SRA did not satisfy with the warning given to my solicitor who breached their own contract with me and AML rules and regulations the SRA are responsible for regulating. No criminal investigation has been entered into in a case of fraud where GBP 270000 was paid to an unknown recipient.