Last week, we announced that Asons Solicitors had ceased trading and Banks Solicitors, trading as Coops Law, had changed its registered address to that of Asons, alongside a TUPE transfer of all Asons staff to Coops. Banks Solicitors is an ABS owned by Irfan Akram, brother of the former Asons founders.
However, it has recently been reported that following an SRA intervention Coops file handlers have been prevented from continuing their progress on ‘ongoing’ Asons cases unless they have a written mandate from the client.[i]
As yet, it is difficult to predict what the outcome will be, since the grounds for this action have been vague. It has simply been stressed that they wish to ‘protect the interests of clients and former clients’.
We will continue to update readers on future developments.
[i] ‘SRA shuts down Asons and tells staff transferred to another firm they can’t have their files’ (31 March 2017 Legal Futures) <http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/sra-shuts-asons-tells-staff-transferred-another-firm-cant-files> accessed 03 March 2017.