Tribunal finds Poddar let client account be used as a bank in risky $80m overseas deal
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has imposed an indefinite suspension on solicitor Biplab Kumar Poddar after finding he failed to uphold anti-money laundering rules, allowed his firm’s client account to be used as a banking facility, and facilitated a transaction riddled with red flags.
The hearing, spread across March and September 2020, was chaired by Mr B. Forde with Mr P. Booth and Dr S. Bown. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) was represented by Andrew Bullock, while Poddar appeared for himself.
At the centre of the case lay a cross-border transaction in 2016 involving US$300,000 linked to an alleged US$80 million financial instrument. Poddar’s firm, Hamlet Solicitors LLP, received £122,160.87 into its client account and paid out £112,000 to various third parties, despite providing almost no legal work on the deal. The SRA argued that the transaction bore “the hallmarks of being dubious” and that Poddar had ignored glaring warning signs.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe Tribunal accepted that Poddar was out of his depth. His practice was mainly immigration law, yet he agreed to act as escrow for a high-value international deal involving multiple jurisdictions and unknown individuals. His due diligence was cursory: he took a photocopy of a passport, ran a web search without recording the results, and relied on assurances from a man he knew personally. Most of the money came from a woman in China, described as a client’s “sister”, though Poddar made no effort to check her identity or the source of her funds.
Documents in the file raised even more concerns. A “Financial Services Agreement” was littered with spelling errors and contradictions, naming companies that appeared unrelated to the supposed transaction. A “proof of funds” letter bore Deutsche Bank’s name but was never verified. Despite these anomalies, Poddar issued undertakings to transfer large sums to consultants and companies he had not vetted.
In doing so, the SDT ruled, he had failed to apply the Money Laundering Regulations 2007, breached his firm’s own anti-money laundering policy, and overridden objective safeguards with what he called his “own judgement”. The panel said: “Judgement based upon hope and good wishes, in this context, was unacceptable and an abrogation of his responsibility as a solicitor.”
The case also included a domestic conveyancing matter where Poddar paid £30,007.45 from client funds to a company linked to the seller, even though his legal work had ended. He admitted in hindsight that he should have returned the money to the client directly. The Tribunal held that he had once again allowed his client account to be misused as a banking facility.
In mitigation, Poddar pointed to a decade of unblemished practice, more than a thousand clients served, and the absence of dishonesty or client complaints. He told the Tribunal he had since stopped taking conveyancing or international instructions and had undertaken extra training. He also cited poor health and stress at the time of the transactions.
But the panel was unsparing. It found his culpability high and the potential harm to the profession’s reputation “very high”. While there was no evidence of personal dishonesty, the Tribunal concluded that he had lacked integrity, surrendered his independence, and exposed the public to unacceptable risks.
Citing Sir Thomas Bingham’s test in Bolton v Law Society, the Tribunal said the profession must be trusted “to the ends of the earth”. In this case, it judged that only an indefinite suspension could protect that reputation, while leaving open the possibility of future reinstatement if Poddar could demonstrate insight and remediation.
The SDT also ordered him to pay £26,000 in costs to the SRA, rejecting his claim for costs of his own. His subsequent appeal, heard by Lang J in October 2021, was dismissed.