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	England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Krivinskas v Law Society [2006] EWHC 1808 (Admin) (18 July 2006) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2006/1808.html Cite as: [2006] EWHC 1808 (Admin)

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
		18/07/2006

Lord Justice Sedley :

This is the judgment of the court.

1. By a decision of a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal given on 11 February 2005, the appellant Peter Edward Krivinskas was found guilty of conduct unbefitting a solicitor and was ordered to be struck off the Roll. This is his appeal as of right against the tribunal's findings and sentence. His central argument is that the Law Society, as complainant, had failed to bring home the element of dishonesty on one crucial charge, and that in the absence of dishonesty striking off was an excessive penalty.
2. The charges laid against the appellant fell into two main groups. The first group consisted of the following charges:

(a) He has breached Rule 22(5) of the Solicitors Accounts Rules 1998 in that he has withdrawn from client account monies that exceeded the balance held on behalf of those clients in relation to whom the withdrawals were made;

(b) He withdrew from client account monies in respect of costs without having first sent a bill or other written intimation of costs to his client or the paying party, contrary to Rule 19 of the said Rules;

(c) He has acted with conspicuous impropriety and lack of probity such as was likely to bring him and the solicitors' profession into disrepute;

(d) Having received funds in circumstances where he was in effect a trustee of those funds, he failed to take proper steps to secure those funds from misappropriation by himself or another;

(e) Disposed of funds in breach of an obligation which he had assumed to the provider of those funds as to the circumstances in which the funds could be released;

(f) He failed to comply with the terms of an undertaking given to Mr T in writing on 1^st September 1999;

(g) He acted or continued to act in circumstances where there existed a conflict of interest;

The second group of charges was:

(h) That through his involvement in a financial transaction he compromised or impaired his independence and/or his integrity, and his good repute and that of the solicitors' profession, contrary to Rule 1 of the Solicitors Practice Rules 1990;

(i) He attempted to mislead an officer of the Law Society during the course of an inspection of his books of account and other documents.

3. Each group of charges was laid in a document which set out in narrative form what was to be alleged and proved in support. No complaint is made of inadequacy in this regard. It was made clear by this means that the misconduct alleged in counts (h) and (i) was alleged to have been dishonest.
4. To charges (a), (b), (e) and (f) the appellant pleaded guilty in respect of one client. Count (c) was treated as making no separate allegation. The tribunal found counts (d) and (g) proved. As to (d) they found that, albeit without dishonesty, the appellant "did not exercise … proper care over funds which he held in the capacity of a trustee". As to (g) they said this:

70. The Tribunal found allegation (g) to have been substantiated. The Tribunal noted that the Respondent had described himself as a "middleman". He was a solicitor and not an impartial negotiator between parties with differing interests. He had a responsibility to represent one client and serve that client's best interests. He did act where there was a conflict of interest between Mr T and EB Network (or Mr AW of that firm). It is not the role of a solicitor to be a middleman. There was not clarity as to who was the Respondent's client at the material time and the Tribunal concluded that he sought to act for both parties.

5. The tribunal found count (h) proved, both in point of fact and in point of dishonesty. They dismissed count (i).

History

6. It is necessary, in order to explain both the above findings and those which were made on the second group of charges, to set out something of their history.
7. Irregularities in the appellant's conduct of his practice came to light during an investigation.  Though founding a number of charges, they may be seen as being of two types: first, financial, in the operation of client and office accounts; and, second, involving himself in financial transactions relating to loan applications and security therefor.
8. As to the first, the client account could not be reconciled with the documents relating to it: there was a small, but persistently unexplained, surplus.  More seriously, the account showed a shortfall of £107,352.71 as at 31^st December 2001.  The appellant had two explanations for this.  He had acted for a client, T, in a property sale. The sale proceeds were attributed in error to office account, when they should have been lodged in client account.  Once this came to light, at the start of the 2002 New Year, the error was corrected.  This accounted for the bulk of the shortfall.  Secondly, he had acted for some 29 clients in respect of personal injury claims funded by Claims Advance.  The practice adopted by Claims Advance prior to October 2001 had invariably been to notify his practice that a sum was being remitted, and to remit it contemporaneously direct to the bank holding the client account.  The sums remitted were used to fund disbursements on behalf of the client concerned.  Unknown to the appellant, some payments after the start of October were not made as notified until after some delay.  On the assumption that the moneys had been received by the bank holding the client account, in accordance with the notification, the appellant discharged disbursements and expenses from client account.  He did not check with the bank first that the sums had actually been credited to the account.  Accordingly, sums credited to other clients of his practice were in fact subsidising those injury clients of his in respect of whom the payments out had been made before the receipt of the promised funds.
9. These financial irregularities were the basis for the first two charges before the Disciplinary Tribunal.  They were accepted by the appellant.
10. As to the second type of allegation, however, more needs to be said.  The appellant was accused of withdrawing £3,160.92 from client account on the 21^st July 1999, and paying it into office account, without first rendering any bill; of giving an undertaking to a client, T (not the same as the client we have already referred to by that initial), which he ignored; and of acting as a middle man between two parties who had a conflict of interest (the same man, T, to whom he had given the undertaking, and the same person, W, whose money it was he had withdrawn to pay into office account).
11. The relevant history of relations between W and the appellant is this.  W asked the appellant in early 1999 if he would open a ledger to receive money from him.  W had not previously been a client of the appellant, who took no steps to enquire as to the provenance of the money and was used essentially as a banker in respect of it.  He paid out a sum in dollars from it, on the instructions of W, which amounted to £25,026.58, and rendered an account on 7^th May 1999 in the sum of £1,812.50.  That left £3,160.92 standing to the credit or order of Mr.W.  On 21^st July 1999 the appellant paid that sum into his Office Account.  There was no bill of costs to support the payment.  The appellant's explanation given to Mr. Hankin, the investigating officer of the Law Society, was that when he had done the first bill he miscalculated what he had left, and the second bill was done for the balance. There was no written authority for the transfer.
12. When challenged by Mr. Hankin, the appellant was unable to produce any documentation to support the second payment, though he subsequently produced a retrospective written authority for the transfer from W. These circumstances were particularly surprising given the publicity surrounding efforts to police money laundering, to which substantial prominence was given by the Law Society and of which the appellant knew.
13. Mr. W subsequently faxed the appellant on 30^th July 1999 to tell him that he would shortly receive funds from a Trust (which turned out to be T's family trust) which were to be used to support the issuing of a bank guarantee.  On the 2^nd August the appellant faxed a letter to a Mr. R of EBN (the firm for whom Mr. W purported to be acting) to say that he undertook to hold "such moneys received from the [Trust] for the sole purpose of utilising the same for the acquisition of a bank guarantee to be used for the benefit of the [Trust]".  On the next day, T wrote to the appellant asking for clarification of a number of details relating to the proposed transaction: and a day later, though noting that confirmation should have been sought from "your introductory party", the appellant replied, confirming the details and, amongst other matters, promising to obtain reimbursement from the solicitor acting for the issuer of the bank guarantee if for some reason it was not issued.
14. In response to a further request, an undertaking was given on 1^st September 1999 by the appellant to T to "use funds received from you for the purpose of the obtaining of the above guarantee".
15. On 20^th October, T wrote to request that $100,000 be transferred from funds held to his credit on client account to a Luxembourg bank.  The letter required that it be a condition of the transfer that within 10 days that bank delivered a guarantee "issued by one of the top 25 European banks" guaranteeing to pay him, or to his order, the sum of $500,000 on maturity after a year and a day, in accordance with draft wording which was supplied; and asking that the appellant first approach a named contact at the Luxembourg Bank to ensure that she was in a position to accept the transfer, conditional as it was.
16. The money was paid out, without that condition being either specified by the appellant or agreed by the recipient of the funds, and in the absence of any approach to the named contact.  When T did not receive the guarantee he had sought, he asked for the money to be refunded.  It was not.  Belatedly, a form of guarantee (which did not correspond with that specified) which matured after 6 months rather than a year and a day, offered by a Moscow-based bank which could not reasonably be thought to be within the top 25, was offered by W or EBN but was plainly inadequate. 
17. Thus T lost his money in circumstances which had a strong scent of fraud about them, at least so far as W's operations were concerned.
18. In the course of his interview with Mr. Hankin, the appellant said in relation to his involvement in these transactions that:

a. He had warned T not to enter the transaction (in a letter he said that he had done so both by telephone and in correspondence)

b. He had told T that the money could not be sent conditionally unless by telegraphic transfer

c. That he was instructed nonetheless to go ahead

d. That he did not really know who his client was (T or W)

e. That W was not his Client.

19. As a matter of fact, there was no written record, either by attendance note or copy letter, of any advice against the transaction; nor was there any such record of the advice about transfer and the conditions upon which it could be effected.  Nor were these suggestions raised until well after T first complained that his instructions had not been honoured.  Nor was there any record of instructions from T to proceed despite the doubts which it was said had been expressed.  And a number of documents produced by the appellant referred to W as "the client" of the appellant.
20. The explanation proffered by the appellant (in a letter of 23^rd August 2002 to the Law Society) was that his involvement was "confined to discussions and … there was no actual involvement in any proposed deals……I did not consider that I was acting on a solicitor/client basis with either EBN or Mr.T.  I was there very much as a 'middleman' to facilitate the transaction……the only reason why monies were being held in my client account was to enable them to be held in an independent account as proof that funds existed.  Those funds were then to be paid over by agreement between the parties…"
21. T did not accept the truth of the appellant's account.  He did not, however, give evidence before the SDT.  He died before the hearing.
22. Finally came a transaction giving rise to the charge that the appellant had acted dishonestly.  He had a client, Steen, who was charged with fraud, for whom he acted since October 1999.  The fraud was said to be of an "advance fee" type – that applicants for loans would approach Steen, who claimed to be able to broker an appropriate deal.  He required a fee in advance for processing the transaction, and alternatively or additionally for "due diligence" investigations.  This would be paid up front by the applicants.  The form of loan agreement provided that collateral security might be required: typically, this would be a bond, for which a payment of around a quarter of the value of the loan would then be demanded.  It was always likely to be impracticable for applicants to find the money for such a bond, and most then withdrew, having lost the non-refundable fees paid in advance.  Steen was said to have taken a total of some £3.8 million in advance fees, and never to have processed or brokered a single loan deal. At his trial he appears to have admitted as much.
23. In January 2002, the appellant was telephoned by L, who asked if he, the appellant, knew of a source of loan funding.  The appellant put L in touch with Steen, without saying anything to warn L of the frauds with which Steen then stood charged.
24. In interview with Mr. Hankin on 10^th September 2003, the appellant denied having effected the introduction of L to Steen.  Indeed, he went so far as to say that he would not have put L on to Steen, since Steen was charged with fraud, and that he was pretty certain that he had advised L against pursuing the transaction.  He supported this in a letter of 30^th September 2003 to the Law Society, which enclosed a statement from Steen denying that the appellant had introduced L to him. That was consistent with a letter of 23^rd January 2003 which the appellant was later to write to L, "strongly denying" that he had ever introduced L to Steen. But it was inconsistent with a letter written and faxed to L by the appellant on 8^th March 2002 :

"When you first approached me in this matter I said that I did not wish to become involved but I did know someone who may be in a position to facilitate the financing needs that you required.

I informed you at the time this person normally works on the basis that the loans are interest only and that because of this, and because the loan needed to be repaid at the end of its period at say, ten years, that this person would insist on an assignable collateral bond which at the end of the ten year period would be sufficient to pay back the amount advanced. You assured me at the time that that would not be a problem. It was only on that basis that I introduced you to Mr Steen and because of your comments, he felt confident that he would be in a position to raise the funding on the strength of the assignable collateral bond.

….

Mr Steen does have connections and is able to facilitate the loan providing that the security requirements are met.

I have stressed both to you and to George Steen that I was happy to facilitate introduction but that thereafter, each party must take the other on its own merits and either proceed or not to proceed according to what they find"

25. The appellant denied any involvement in the transaction which subsequently was entered into between Steen and L.  However, that too was not easy to reconcile with documents showing that there had been a meeting between Steen and L which had involved the appellant, at his practice's premises, and a further meeting which had been arranged to involve the appellant but did not in the event occur. Moreover, a number of the documents, though sent to the appellant rather than by him, were suggestive of a continuing involvement.
26. These letters formed part of a group of 16 letters or faxes (dated from 28^th December 2001to 15^th July 2002) which were not held on the appellant's files.  They came to light on 12^th January 2004 when the Law Society was provided with copies of documents which had been seized by the Serious Fraud Office during the criminal investigation in relation to Steen.  The respondent contended before the SDT that the number and content of these documents were such that their absence from the files must have been deliberate, and constituted an attempt to deceive the Law Society's investigator.
27. It must be noted that of the documents seized by the SFO, not all were made available to the appellant or were before the SDT: 26 potentially relevant documents were not.  The appellant places reliance before us on their consequent absence from the material before the disciplinary tribunal. The Law Society, in answer, says that the documents could only have made the appellant's situation worse than it already was.
28. Thus it was that charges (a) to (f), which had initially been faced by the Appellant, were supplemented in June 2004 by charges (h) and (i) with the allegation of dishonesty which we have described. Those charges came for hearing before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal on the 16^th November 2004.

The missing documents

29. Although it took the Law Society more time than it should have done, following the tribunal's decision, to respond to the appellant's request for copies of the 26 documents which had been seized by the Serious Fraud Office and subsequently made available to the Law Society's senior investigation officer, Sean Hankin, but not to the appellant or the disciplinary tribunal, it is also now clear from the transcript of the investigation (a) that 16 of those seized by the SFO had been shown to the appellant by Mr Hankin in the course of the investigation and (b) that Mr Hankin had made it clear that he had the entire file that the SFO had seized. The appellant was given a short time to look through those documents which Mr Hankin had selected as the relevant ones. He did not ask to see any of the others, although he knew that Mr Hankin had them.
30. In this situation there is no ground on which it can be contended that the appellant has been the victim of prosecutorial misconduct. The only possible questions are whether the tribunal may have been misled by not knowing what the 26 undisclosed documents contained and, if so, whether the appellant, who knew of the documents then, can complain of their absence now.
31. Hugo Page QC on the appellant's behalf submits that the absence of the 26 documents from those considered by the tribunal had a potentially critical effect on the tribunal's decision. Having invited him to identify those documents among the 26 which might have made a difference in the appellant's favour, we are satisfied that there are none.
32. The main point that Mr Page seeks to derive from the 26 documents is that one of them, an e-mail dated 15 March 2002 from a George Barlow to Steen, shows that Barlow had "a lender or lenders available" to fund the Turkish deal (evidently Mr L's project) on suitable terms. He relies also on a letter dated 16 September 2002 from Steen to Mr L, copied to the appellant, which he submits shows that an alternative funder was available. Here was evidence, Mr Page submits, capable of showing the tribunal that Steen was not himself purporting to act as the funder but was a middleman or broker. This would have controverted the Law Society's case that the Turkish deal was very similar to the kind of fraud for which Steen was being prosecuted – a case which the tribunal had accepted when it held that Steen was facing criminal charges "for transacting loan deals of the very sort about which Mr L was making inquiry" (§130) and that the two kinds of transaction were "similar" (§129).
33.  Peter Cadman, representing the Law Society, submits that whatever the distinctions in the modus operandi, there was in substance no difference between the various scams. In each of them a loan was sought, Steen took a substantial fee up front for arranging it, no loan ever eventuated and the fee was lost. He was to admit as much in the course of the defence that the appellant was preparing for his trial. Mr Cadman also points out that the appellant, in giving his own evidence, had himself made reference to "any funders" that Steen had had. The existence of potential, but never actual, funders, whoever they were, was one of the features of Steen's frauds.
34. We consider that neither this nor any of the other documents among the 26 could have done anything to dispel the tribunal's impression that the frauds were all of a kind. For the reasons advanced by Mr Cadman, it was an impression which they were not only entitled but almost bound to form. It follows that the question whether Mr Krivinskas can now rely on the non-production of these documents is immaterial. Production of them would have done him no good.

Did the appellant act dishonestly?

35. This brings us to the principal argument advanced by Mr Page. He contends, first, that there was no evidence capable of supporting a finding of dishonesty on the appellant's part; and secondly that, even if there was, the tribunal's finding that it was made out is deficiently reasoned.
36. The material paragraphs of the tribunal's conclusions are these:

The findings of the Tribunal re allegations (h) and (i)

123. The Tribunal did not believe the Respondent's evidence as to his limited involvement in the loan deal involving Mr L and Mr S. The Tribunal did not find it credible that the Respondent had destroyed, lost or mislaid 16 documents which would throw a light on his involvement. The letter addressed by the respondent to Mr L dated 8^th March 2002 provided compelling evidence of the Respondent's involvement in the scheme. In that letter he discussed the nature of the transaction, offered advice on it, and went on to say that he was happy to facilitate introduction but thereafter each party had to take the other on their own merits. The Tribunal did not believe that the Respondent had forgotten at the time he said he would introduce Mr L to Mr S, Mr S was facing criminal charges for transacting loan deals of the very sort about which Mr L was making enquiry. The Tribunal did find that the Respondent was involved in the financial transaction and did not find, as the Respondent claimed, that the part played by him was insignificant and peripheral.

124. With regard to the allegation that the Respondent attempted to mislead the SIO, the Tribunal noted that the SIO himself in his oral evidence before the Tribunal stated that he did not consider that he was being or had been misled and the Tribunal has paid due regard to that. The Tribunal has concluded that the Respondent did not attempt to mislead the SIO.

The Tribunal's Decision and its Reasons

125. The Tribunal found allegations (a), (b), (d), (e), (f) and (g) to have been substantiated as set out above. The Tribunal also found allegation (h) to have been substantiated.

126. The Respondent had admitted allegations (a), and (b), and taking (d) and (e) together accepted that the Respondent failed to take reasonable steps and disposed of funds in breach of his obligation to preserve client money. The Tribunal made their finding in respect of Mr T only. In respect of that matter the Tribunal did not find that the Respondent had behaved dishonestly. The Tribunal found allegation (f) to have been substantiated, namely that the Respondent failed to comply with an undertaking given to Mr T, which the Respondent also admitted.

127. The Tribunal found allegation (g) to have been substantiated. The Tribunal found that the Respondent was acting for both Mr T and EB Network/Mr AW where their respective interests were in conflict.

128. The Tribunal was invited to conclude that the Respondent had been dishonest in relation to allegations (d) and (e). The Tribunal in considering the question of dishonesty considered the test set out in Twinsectra -v-Yardley and found that the test was not satisfied in this case.

129. The Tribunal also applied the test in Twinsectra -v- Yardley in respect of allegation (h). The Tribunal concluded that in connection with his introduction of Mr L to Mr S the Respondent had acted dishonestly. The fact was at the time of this introduction the Respondent was embroiled in proposing a defence for Mr S who stood charged and on bail in relation to serious offences relating to fraud. These alleged offences related to similar transactions to that with which Mr L required assistance. The introduction of Mr L to Mr S by the Respondent would have been regarded as dishonest by ordinary members of the solicitors' profession, and the Tribunal considered that the Respondent himself knew that what he was doing was dishonest.

130. The Tribunal regarded the Respondent's behaviour to have been extraordinary. He was aware of the warnings issued by the Law Society in an attempt to assist solicitors and prevent them from unwittingly assisting rogues in their nefarious activities involving prime bank instrument fraud and money laundering and yet was prepared to become involved in transactions which bore the hallmarks of fraud identified in the Law Society's warnings, as illustrated by his introduction of Mr L to Mr S and the other transactions in which the Respondent had acted.

131. With regard to allegation (h) the Tribunal did not believe the evidence of the Respondent and found him to have acted dishonestly. It was right in order to protect the public and the good reputation of the solicitors' profession that the Respondent be struck off the Roll of Solicitors.

37. There is no dispute that the tribunal directed themselves correctly that the Law Society must prove beyond doubt that the solicitor was guilty of conscious impropriety. They concluded that dishonesty had been proved on count (h):

"The introduction of Mr L to Mr S by [Mr Krivinskas] would have been regarded as dishonest by ordinary members of the solicitors' profession, and the Tribunal considered that [Mr Krivinskas] himself knew that what he was doing was dishonest."

38. It needs first to be observed that most of the contentious material did not go to this issue. What it showed was the appellant repeatedly changing his explanations of what he had done: his initial denial of any but the most peripheral involvement, which was the case he reverted to before us, had been retreated from in the course of the investigation and was in any event largely destroyed by the documentary evidence of his ongoing involvement. Its effect was to deprive him of any acceptable explanation of his actions, but it did not by itself make them dishonest.
39. To this Mr Page adds the fact that no motive for dishonesty was ever brought home to the appellant, or indeed suggested to the tribunal, inasmuch as there was no evidence that he had obtained or expected any reward for the introduction. In a case of this kind a corrupt motive is frequently sufficient to establish the dishonesty of misconduct; but we reject Mr Page's submission that it is a necessary element of dishonesty. The test has to be applied directly to the facts, whatever they are.
40. The tribunal were in our judgment entitled to find the appellant guilty of dishonesty on count (h) on the bare ground that he had introduced Mr L to Steen with a view to obtaining a loan when he knew, as Mr L manifestly did not, that Steen was facing charges of loan fraud. This was not only, as the appellant now concedes, irresponsible: it exposed Mr L to a very high risk of being defrauded. The specifically dishonest thing was failing to tell Mr L about Steen; but if, as the appellant at one stage told the investigator and has also submitted to this court, solicitor-and-client privilege would have prevented him from doing so, it was dishonest to effect the introduction at all. (The claim made in the course of the appellant's evidence to privilege in relation to a matter of public record – the indictment faced by Steen –  seems to us as remarkable as his claim, moments later, to have been entitled to rely on his client's plea of not guilty; but we do not have to decide it.)
41. When the tribunal said, at §123, that they "did not believe" that Mr Krivinskas had forgotten, when he offered to introduce Mr L, that Steen was "facing criminal charges for transacting loan deals of the very sort about which Mr L was making enquiry", they did not mean, as Mr Page suggests they did, that the appellant had claimed to have forgotten it (though his evidence came very close to this). They meant that they were not prepared to accept any suggestion that Mr Krivinskas had not acted knowingly.
42. The tribunal were in our judgment fully entitled to regard the appellant's action, in introducing Mr L to Steen either without giving or – even worse, if it were the case – without being able to give him a warning which would almost certainly have steered him off, as not merely irresponsible but as something which solicitors would regard as dishonest. They were also fully entitled to find, both because it was obvious and because of his repeated subsequent evasions, that the appellant knew it was dishonest.
43. Mr Page relies, however, on the tribunal's acquittal of the appellant on count (i), a charge of having attempted to mislead the Law Society's investigation officer. This is recorded and explained in §124 of their reasons, quoted earlier. The reasoning in that paragraph is a non sequitur: the fact that the investigator was not misled does not mean that the appellant was not trying to mislead him. But, accepting the finding in his favour, we do not accept that it has any significant impact on the tribunal's antecedent findings. The appellant's changes of story were a matter of record and the tribunal were entitled to take note of them as part of the pattern which it was their task to interpret.
44. As to the adequacy of the tribunal's reasons, we accept that they are not beyond criticism. We have remarked on the failure of logic on charge (i), but it is one which does the appellant no harm. There is also, however, the passage at the end of §130 where the tribunal treat the appellant's transactions bearing "the hallmarks of fraud" as having included "the other transactions in which the [appellant] had acted". Mr Page is entitled to say that, if what are meant are the shortcomings charged in counts (a) to (f), these transactions had not been held to be fraudulent; and that if what is meant is something else, it was not part of the inquiry.
45. We agree that this concluding remark is inapt. We do not accept, however, that it is integral to the tribunal's reasoning on dishonesty. That reasoning, as can be seen, was already complete. What the tribunal presumably had in mind was that the introduction of Mr L to Steen came at the end of a substantial series of other acts and omissions also constituting professional misconduct; but if so, this was not the point at which to say so.
46. More broadly, we have considered whether the tribunal failed, as Mr Page suggests they did, to give adequate and intelligible reasons for their key conclusions. In this regard we have in mind the recent decision in Phipps v General Medical Council [2006] EWCA Civ 397 as well as the leading case of English v Emery Reimbold [2002] 1 WLR 2409. We take the material principle to be, for present purposes, that while there is no obligation on a disciplinary tribunal to justify each of their findings of fact, they do have to explain how they have resolved the key issues. The appellant's awareness or unawareness that he was acting dishonestly was undoubtedly such an issue.
47. It is in our view manifest from the tribunal's findings and reasoning why they found not only that the appellant had behaved dishonestly but that he must have known that he was doing so. The earlier parts of this judgment set out the relevant material in the decision, but we would highlight two things in particular. One is the fact that, despite warnings circulated to practitioners by the Law Society, the appellant had not long before got himself involved as stakeholder in a transaction between W and T which was redolent of fraud. He ought therefore to have been especially vigilant about again becoming a conduit for crime. The second is the apparent loss of 16 documents potentially indicative of the extent of the appellant's involvement with Steen. The omission of the tribunal to deal expressly with the appellant's suggestion that, in addition or alternatively to destroying, mislaying or losing the documents, he might have returned them to Steen is in our view inconsequential. Everything about the disappearance of these documents was suspicious, wherever they had gone. Beyond this there was extant documentary evidence that the appellant's involvement with Steen was significantly closer than he was now prepared to admit.
48. While we accept that the paragraphs of the decision which are set out earlier in this judgment, especially perhaps 129 and 130, might have been more explicitly focused in these respects, we can find no fatal deficiency of findings or reasons in the decision read as a whole. An objective reader would, in our judgment, appreciate by the time he or she reached the final page exactly why the disciplinary tribunal had concluded that Mr Krivinskas must have been aware that he was doing something not merely foolish or wrong but dishonest when he put Mr L on to Steen as a potential source of loan funding without warning him that Steen was being prosecuted for loan frauds.

Outcome

49. Mr Cadman submitted that even if we were to overset the finding of dishonesty, we should still uphold the striking of the appellant from the Roll because of the gravity of the other charges found proved against him. Mr Page submitted that in that event the case should be remitted for reappraisal of the penalty. Had we agreed with Mr Page that there was no basis on which dishonesty could be found, we would have been minded to take the course he proposed. Had we found that, although available, the finding of dishonesty had not been properly made or adequately reasoned, we would have been minded to remit count (h) for rehearing. In the event, however, we uphold the decision of the tribunal that Mr Krivinskas was guilty of dishonest conduct in introducing Mr L to his client George Steen. It follows that the penalty of striking off stands.
50. We would add, nevertheless, that even if dishonesty had not been established in relation to count (h), it would be surprising if the appellant had not been convicted on it. It would also have been surprising if, adding this to the other counts which were also found proved against him, the disciplinary tribunal had not concluded that he was unfit to continue to practise as a solicitor.