Cobbetts’ board members to face allegations of “manifest incompetence”

Eight former lawyers at failed law firm Cobbetts have been referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for “manifest incompetence” and financial mismanagement.

The action against the former board members was revealed today by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and comes more than four years after the Manchester-headquartered firm was bought in a pre-pack deal by DWF.

In a statement, the group said: “The SRA allegations, coming some four years after Cobbetts’ sale, are misconceived and are fully, and strenuously, denied.

“The evidence demonstrates that we acted appropriately and with propriety throughout.”

Cobbetts went into administration in February 2013 after a severe downturn in trading in late 2012. DWF, with whom it had previously held merger talks, picked up its work in progress and some 400 staff in a £3.9m pre-pack deal.

Four of the eight partners still work at DWF – former Cobbetts managing partner Nicholas Carr is based in Leeds, Stephen John Benson and Paul Andrew Brown are at DWF’s Manchester office, and Mark Gibson is based in Birmingham.

Richard Webb, who joined DWF in the 2013 deal, is now at TLT in Manchester and Mark Green, the Honorary Consul for Germany in the North of England, is a consultant for Gateley in Leeds. Stephen Alan Thornton and James Boyd are not currently attached to a firm.

There are two allegations against Carr and his former colleagues – that between June 2012 and February 2013 they were responsible individually or collectively “for providing misleading information and/or for failing to provide material information” and “for failing to run the business or carry out his respective role in the business effectively and in accordance with proper governance and sound financial and risk management principles”.

Thornton will not face the finance and governance allegation, but he and Boyd have an additional allegation of conduct “of such a nature that in the opinion of the Society it would be undesirable for them to be involved in a legal practice”.