{"id":30692,"date":"2026-04-21T06:28:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=30692"},"modified":"2026-04-21T06:28:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:28:36","slug":"collapsed-law-firm-at-centre-of-39-5m-fraud-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2026\/04\/21\/collapsed-law-firm-at-centre-of-39-5m-fraud-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Collapsed law firm at centre of \u00a339.5m fraud probe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A law firm that collapsed suddenly is being investigated over a “sophisticated suspected fraud” involving the “improper removal and misuse” of \u00a339.5m of client funds, a regulator has said.<\/b><\/p>\n

Sheffield-based PM Law Ltd, which had 25 offices in Yorkshire, Cumbria, Berkshire, Derbyshire and London, shut on 2 February, leaving hundreds of people out of work and affecting tens of thousands of cases.<\/p>\n

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), which intervened after the closure, said it estimated over \u00a321m of claims had been made to its compensation fund to date.<\/p>\n

The BBC has repeatedly contacted PM Law Ltd, which entered voluntary liquidation on 3 March, for comment but has so far received no response.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The PM Law group consisted of 11 companies, 25 offices and over 30 trading names, and included firms such as Proddow Mackay, Butterworths Solicitors and WB Pennine Solicitors.<\/p>\n

It specialised in personal injury, wills and conveyancing and, according to its website, employed over 600 members of staff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Significant upheaval’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The SRA said the intervention into PM Law had been one of the largest and most complex it had ever undertaken, involving 25,000 emails and letters and 17,000 inquiries.<\/p>\n

Paul Hastings, the SRA’s director of client protection, said: “We are continuing to do all we can to support former clients of PM Law, including by reuniting them with their money or files.<\/p>\n

“Many of the former clients faced significant upheaval at a stressful time, so we have been determined to provide as much support as possible.”<\/p>\n

According to the regulator, as of 17 April, 92 claims totalling \u00a39.31m had been paid to former clients from the SRA Compensation Fund.<\/p>\n

A further \u00a36.8m had been paid out from money held within the firm at the time the SRA intervened, meanwhile 9,300 files had been returned to clients, the regulator said.<\/p>\n

Clients of PM Law\u00a0who previously spoke to the BBC<\/a>\u00a0said they had been in the middle of buying or selling a home, were facing the risk of collapsed moves, or losing their deposits due to the firm’s sudden closure.<\/p>\n

Staff\u00a0were also left devastated<\/a>, discovering they had lost their jobs via a notice posted in the windows of the company’s premises.<\/p>\n

Further details on how clients are being supported are available\u00a0on the SRA’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Report Fraud, a nationwide service run by City of London Police, previously said it was aware of the fraud allegations involving PM Law.<\/p>\n

A Report Fraud spokesperson said at the time it had “received reports in connection to these allegations” and was liaising with the SRA.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A law firm that collapsed suddenly is being investigated over a “sophisticated suspected fraud” involving the “improper removal and misuse” of \u00a339.5m of client funds, a regulator has said. Sheffield-based PM Law Ltd, which had […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,4],"tags":[6497,12449,6124,4809,9128,305,302,12447,12448,12452,518,12446,12451,12450,8144],"class_list":{"0":"post-30692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-uk","10":"tag-berkshire","11":"tag-butterworths-solicitors","12":"tag-city-of-london-police","13":"tag-cumbria","14":"tag-derbyshire","15":"tag-fraud","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-pm-law-ltd","18":"tag-proddow-mackay","19":"tag-report-fraud","20":"tag-sheffield","21":"tag-solicitors-regulation-authority","22":"tag-sra-compensation-fund","23":"tag-wb-pennine-solicitors","24":"tag-yorkshire","25":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30694,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30692\/revisions\/30694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}