Tribunal fines solicitor £15,001 over false £1m declaration in UK future fund loan application.
A solicitor has been fined £15,001 and hit with two years of strict practice restrictions after a disciplinary tribunal found she signed a false declaration confirming £1 million was held in her firm’s client account when it was not.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Asiya Nasim Kaleem, then head of civil litigation at Alison Law Solicitors LLP, signed the declaration on 27 January 2021 while acting for a company applying for a £1 million loan from the UK Government’s Future Fund scheme.
The Future Fund, administered via the British Business Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, required applicants to secure matching private investment. To release public funds, the solicitor handling the deal had to confirm that the private investment sum was already in their client account.
Kaleem signed the letter stating that £1 million from a private investor was deposited in Alison Law Solicitors’ client account. In reality, no such funds had been received at that time. The public loan was nevertheless released on 2 February 2021 and transferred to the client, Company A, in tranches over the following weeks.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe Tribunal heard that the private investor’s funds did not arrive until late March 2021 — two months after the declaration was signed and after the Future Fund had threatened to cancel the agreement.
Kaleem claimed she believed the declaration referred to £1 million the investor had provided to the client in 2017, not new funds that had to be in the firm’s client account. She said this understanding came from instructions by her supervisor, Habibur Rahman, who was not a solicitor. She accepted in hindsight that she should have scrutinised those instructions, especially given her senior role and the significance of the declaration.
The Tribunal found she breached Principle 2 of the SRA Principles, requiring solicitors to maintain public trust, and Paragraph 1.4 of the Code of Conduct, prohibiting misleading statements. While the panel did not find her conduct dishonest, it concluded she had shown a “serious lack of integrity” by failing to question and verify her supervisor’s explanation before signing a statement that released public money.
Kaleem also failed to respond promptly to repeated Future Fund requests to confirm whether the investor’s funds had been received. The panel noted this was a single episode in an otherwise unblemished career, and accepted her misconduct was not deliberate.
Mitigating factors included her cooperation with the investigation, early admissions, and medical evidence provided on her behalf. However, the Tribunal stressed that signing an inaccurate solicitor’s declaration without proper checks undermined confidence in the profession and risked public funds.
Sanctioning her at the ‘serious’ level, the Tribunal imposed a £15,001 fine and ordered her to pay £25,000 in costs. For two years, she is barred from holding client money, being a signatory on client accounts, practising as a sole practitioner or freelance solicitor, becoming a partner or manager in a law firm, or holding senior compliance roles.
The Tribunal said these measures were necessary to protect the public and uphold trust in legal services. It noted that Kaleem’s reliance on her supervisor’s assurances was “entirely inadequate” and fell short of the standards expected of a solicitor in her position.
The case, heard over three days in July 2024, underlines the strict obligations on solicitors to ensure the accuracy of formal declarations — particularly when they trigger the release of substantial public funds
