Zahawi’s solicitor fights £50k misconduct fine in High Court showdown

Osborne Clarke partner challenges the SDT verdict over email to the tax lawyer in the Zahawi case

The solicitor who acted for former Conservative Chancellor Nadeem Zahawi is appealing to the High Court against a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) decision which found him guilty of professional misconduct.

Ashley Hurst, a partner at Osborne Clarke, was fined £50,000 in December last year after the tribunal concluded he had shown a lack of integrity when sending an email to high-profile tax lawyer Dan Neidle. The SDT ruled that the email “improperly attempted” to limit Mr Neidle’s ability to publish it or to discuss its contents publicly.

At the time, Mr Hurst was seeking to persuade Mr Neidle to retract statements he had made about Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs.

In its ruling, published in full in May, the SDT said Mr Hurst had either “ignored or dismissed his regulatory responsibilities” when he marked the email “without prejudice” and gave it what the tribunal described as an “implicit threat” of legal action if its contents were disclosed.

Mr Neidle, founder of the not-for-profit Tax Policy Associates, yesterday released both Mr Hurst’s High Court grounds of appeal and the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) response.

In his appeal, Mr Hurst argued that the tribunal’s central findings were “irrational and unsustainable”. He maintained that the SDT’s conclusion — that he sent the email solely to deter disclosure and publication, without any intention of negotiating — was contradicted by the email’s wording and by the tribunal’s own findings.

“It was accepted by [the SRA] that the email contained an offer of settlement and accepted by the tribunal that in sending the email ‘what he [Mr Hurst] was trying to do was get Mr Neidle on the telephone’,” his appeal stated. “In those circumstances, on the tribunal’s own analysis, there can have been no misconduct.”

Mr Hurst also challenged the finding that he “knew that there was no arguable confidentiality in the email”, describing it as “plainly wrong” under a “proper legal analysis”. He said the tribunal made no reference to his “extensive and uncontradicted written and oral testimony”, which he claimed was consistent with the documentary evidence and explained his motives and beliefs.

The SRA’s position is that the SDT decision was properly reached on the evidence. The regulator argued that Mr Hurst’s legal submissions, both before the tribunal and on appeal, did not address the factual findings — namely that there was “no proper basis for restricting Mr Neidle’s ability to publish or discuss the email”.

According to the SRA, the tribunal found that Mr Hurst had applied the “without prejudice” label “not because the email genuinely met the criteria for WP protection, but to try and prevent Mr Neidle from publishing its contents”. As a result, the label was deemed ineffective, conferring no duties of confidence.

Mr Neidle has warned that if the appeal succeeds, solicitors could use similar tactics to hide threats from public scrutiny. “If Mr Hurst wins this appeal, then solicitors will have a green light to claim their libel threats cannot be published, or even referred to. The ‘secret SLAPP’ will have become blessed by the courts. That would be a terrible result for everybody who cares about free speech,” he wrote.

The SDT ruling revealed that Mr Hurst has already spent close to £910,000 on his defence. The High Court will now decide whether the misconduct finding and substantial fine should stand