The Supreme Court has refused insurers’ application for permission to appeal the decision in Baines v Dixon Coles & Gill [2021] EWCA Civ 1211, in which it was held that separate dishonesty claims by a partner were not subject to one limit of indemnity under the ‘aggregation clause’ in the policy which was written under the SRA Minimum Terms and Conditions.
SIF provides indemnity to solicitors and their staff after expiry of the compulsory six years’ run-off under the Minimum Terms and Conditions. The SRA has applied to the Legal Services Board to extend the life of SIF until 30 September 2023. That it is still paying claims over two decades after SIF was replaced by the open market arrangements demonstrates beyond argument that it is still serving an important function. Regrettably, and avoidably, its future appears to be in peril.
The deadline for responses to the SRA’s Discussion Paper, Next steps on the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) and consumer protection for negligence claims, has closed. Our response ex-plains why in our submission a move to a compensation fund, removing the indemnity for retired solicitors, would be unlawful (and Wednesbury-unreasonable), particularly if any shortage of funds is attributable to the £50m (and possibly rather more) taken from SIF in previous years to pay Law Society staff through its pension fund.
Our response is on www.legalrisk.co.uk/news.
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