Solicitor took £77k in client fees under the firm’s name before being struck off for dishonesty.
A solicitor who siphoned nearly £77,000 in client fees into his personal bank account has been struck off the roll after the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) branded his conduct “deliberate, calculated and repeated”.
Tapfumanei Nyawanza, who qualified in 2009, admitted receiving payments from more than 100 clients while pretending to act through his firm. Instead of ensuring funds went through the proper channels, he directed them straight into his own bank account.
According to an agreed statement of facts approved by the SDT, Nyawanza was a director of Genesis Law Associates Solicitors between 2013 and 2019. The practice was later absorbed by Axiom DWFM, which itself became part of Axiom Ince before its collapse in October 2023.
Nyawanza began working for Axiom DWFM in January 2020, with the firm agreeing to pay Genesis’s run-off cover. By August 2021, he had shifted to a consultancy role before leaving the firm altogether in June 2022.
Concerns soon surfaced about his conduct. Axiom DWFM submitted three separate reports to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2022. These alleged that he had channelled fees into his personal account, used the firm’s name to conduct unauthorised business, and handled client work without opening files on the firm’s case management system.
Embed from Getty ImagesInvestigators found that between May 2020 and June 2022, Nyawanza received £60,600 from 141 separate payments made by 102 payors. The money, relating to immigration work, was paid directly into his personal account under the pretence that the work was being carried out by Axiom DWFM.
He also took an additional £16,350 between February and June 2022 for skilled worker visa applications. In at least 37 instances, he used the firm’s name on applications while having the results sent to his official DWFM email address.
After leaving DWFM, Nyawanza worked as a consultant at fee-share firm Mezzle from May 2022 to March 2023. That arrangement collapsed too, with his consultancy agreement terminated when it emerged he had been working on matters without opening client files. Mezzle received correspondence and funds for at least 10 client matters, none of which were linked to open case files.
Nyawanza admitted he had often failed to open client files and, when he did, neglected to keep adequate records. In many cases, client-care letters were missing. In mitigation, he claimed DWFM had delayed paying his commissions, leaving him under financial strain as “the main breadwinner”. He also insisted he “mostly completed the work clients instructed him to do”.
This was not his first brush with the SDT. In 2022, he was fined £12,500 for neglecting a judicial review case, which had been struck out after he failed to act for almost two years.
The tribunal said a strike-off was the only proportionate sanction given the “deliberate and prolonged” dishonesty. The SRA emphasised that Nyawanza’s actions were motivated by personal financial gain at a time when he was a moderately senior practitioner, making his misconduct even more serious.
Nyawanza accepted the ruling, agreeing to be struck off and ordered to pay £25,000 in costs.