“Solicitor suspended for not disclosing own-interest conflict” —
- “A law firm owner has been suspended for not disclosing conflicts of interest to clients, including that his wife was a director of the property development company they were buying from. This meant Waheed Ur Rehman Mian should not have acted for them, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) said.”
- “Clients lost money because the development failed and they have been reimbursed by Mr Mian’s insurers.”
- “Mr Mian, who qualified in 2003, was majority owner, compliance officer and principal solicitor of East London law firm M-R Solicitors, which between June 2017 and November 2019 acted for around 25 of 75 purchasers from two off-plan developments in Leicester that was meant to be built by Aronex Developments.”
- “There were several conflicts Mr Mian failed to disclose to clients, most notably that his wife was a director of Aronex.”
- “At the hearing, Mr Mian claimed he did not know this until summer 2019, and that his wife did not know M-R Solicitors was acting for purchasers.”
- “The SDT did not believe this, saying that up to this point in the proceedings, Mr Mian had stated that his wife was a silent director and shareholder and that the failure to advise clients of the conflict was an error and oversight caused by the strains of a busy practice.”
- “He had several opportunities to raise this defence before the hearing but had chosen not to do so.”
- “In any case, there were ‘other substantial links’ between the firm and Aronex which the SDT ‘did not consider to be merely coincidental’”
- “These included that the firm was the landlord of the leased premises occupied by Aronex and that two members of staff were also involved in the developments.”
- “‘Accordingly, the tribunal found on the balance of probabilities that [Mr Mian] either knew of the conflict, or as an experienced solicitor ought to have been aware. ‘In such circumstances, [he] must have known that such a conflict was a mandatory prohibition on the firm acting for these clients. The firm should never have taken them on.’”
- “The SDT found that his actions had lacked integrity, a charge Mr Mian had contested.”
- “Mr Mian admitted failing to adequately advise clients of the risks inherent in such investment schemes – in particular their deposit being at risk in the event the seller became insolvent – and to ensure clients were informed of the planning issues facing the developments (ancient artefacts had been found on the sites) prior to releasing their funds to Aronex.”
- “This called into question Mr Mian’s ‘continued ability… to practise appropriately’ but it decided that a six-month suspension would suffice. He was also ordered to pay costs of £40,000.”
“Here’s why a lawyer hired by the government can’t represent public employees in an auditor general investigation…” —
- “According to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, her government was just trying to be helpful when it instructed thousands of public employees to refer calls from the auditor general about his ongoing investigation into allegations of dodgy health care contracts to a lawyer it had retained.”
- ‘The auditor general can ask any employee, former or current, any questions he likes as he is doing the investigation,’ Premier Smith assured the Alberta Legislature yesterday in response to a question from the NDP’s Christina Gray, who is Opposition leader as long as the government refuses to call a by-election in Edmonton-Strathcona that would give party Leader Naheed Nenshi a seat in the House.”
- “Sorry, but that dog won’t hunt. Responding to Ms. Smith, Ms. Gray wondered: ‘Does the premier understand how corrupt this looks?’”
- “Similarly, after the news broke on Thursday of the email sent to Alberta Health Services staff and employees of the provincial Health Department by a senior civil servant instructing them to redirect investigators ‘to our legal counsel,’ Health Minister Adriana LaGrange insisted, ‘this is not about impeding the investigation.’”
- “Ms. LaGrange also claimed that it is standard operating procedure for public employees in Alberta ‘either have legal counsel present, or ministry senior staff present when participating in interviews.’ Presumably she meant government counsel, not their own.”
- “Questions in the Legislature, of course, quickly turned this into a she said/she said dispute. So let’s look elsewhere to understand why the tales told by Ms. Smith and Ms. LaGrange are extremely unlikely. “Our text today comes from the Code of Conduct of the Law Society of Alberta, which states on page 31, ‘A lawyer must not act or continue to act for a client where there is a conflict of interest, except as permitted under this Code.’”
- “Indeed, the question of conflicts is so important, and there are so many situations in which conflicts could potentially arise, that the society’s Code of Conduct devotes 23 full pages to the topic, and at that I daresay that is not exhaustive.”
- “‘A conflict of interest exists when there is a substantial risk that a lawyer’s loyalty to or representation of a client would be materially and adversely affected by the lawyer’s own interest or the lawyer’s duties to another client, a former client, or a third person,’ the Code explains. ‘A substantial risk is one that is significant and, while not certain or probable, is more than a mere possibility. A client’s interests may be prejudiced unless the lawyer’s advice, judgment and action on the client’s behalf are free from conflicts of interest.’”
- “We non-lawyers need not plow through all the situations the document discusses to understand that if a lawyer has been engaged by the government of Alberta to represent its interests in an investigation of this type, it would be impossible in many situations that might arise for that lawyer to properly represent both the interests of his client, the government, and of the government’s employee.”
- “Put simply, Alberta Health (as the Health Department is confusingly known) is a legal entity that has different interests in the AG’s investigation than its employees do.”
- “For example, what if an employee, fearing retribution, asked for her identity to be protected because she has information about a dodgy contract? How can a lawyer representing the department, which is being sued for wrongful dismissal by a former CEO, represent the interests of both the employee and the employer? Common sense suggests the government’s lawyer simply cannot.
