Three SRA Interventions in One Week: What the Pattern Tells Us
- Jon East
- 17 hours ago
- 4 min read
The Law Gazette reported yesterday that the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) intervened to shut down three separate law firms in the space of a single week.
Latest edited May 2026 5 min read. |
Table of contents
Introduction
Thompson & Cooke, a firm with close to a century of history based in Stalybridge. Ross Coates Solicitors in Ipswich. Danbar Solicitors in Uxbridge. Three firms, three regions, three sets of circumstances. And all of them closed within days of each other.
This follows the high-profile intervention into PM Law Group in February 2026, a case we covered in depth in our April article, When client money goes wrong: why law firms are rethinking control, oversight, and infrastructure.
The question isn't why the SRA is acting. It's why the same vulnerabilities keep appearing.
What actually happened
Each case has its own facts. Thompson & Cooke, according to Companies House records, was the subject of a court winding-up order following a creditor petition, with accounts for 2024/25 now overdue. Ross Coates had been fined £13,690 by the SRA in August 2024 after investigators found it had breached money laundering regulations for almost eight years. Danbar Solicitors had accounts running 16 months overdue at the time of intervention.
These are not cases of sudden catastrophic failure. They're cases where visible warning signs accumulated over time and eventually the regulator had to act.
The SRA is also set to publish its business plan this week, which will set out the cost of all this enforcement activity for the profession. Those numbers will land at a moment when the pace of intervention is clearly rising.
The same structural vulnerabilities, every time
We've been writing about this pattern since mid-2025. Our five-part series, Beyond Client Accounts: The Future of Fund Management in Legal Services, laid out in detail why the traditional client account model exposes firms to risks that are structural, not just behavioural.
When you hold client money internally, you're accepting a set of risks that sit inside your firm rather than outside it:
A concentration of access in a small number of individuals
Reconciliation processes that often lag behind real-time activity
Manual oversight that depends on the right people doing the right things consistently
Compliance frameworks that have to keep pace with increasingly complex transactions
None of those risks require bad intentions to cause serious problems. Process failures and governance gaps are enough.
The second instalment of our series, The SRA's TPMA Push: Why Law Firms Should Rethink Holding Client Money, covers where the regulator is heading: not just permitting alternatives to client accounts, but increasingly signalling that those alternatives may become the norm.
"We are exploring whether more could be done to reduce risk around the holding of client money — this could include moving away from client accounts altogether." — SRA Consultation on Holding Client Money, 2024
What your firm can do
The SRA's own guidance under Rule 11 of the SRA Accounts Rules already permits law firms to use a regulated third-party managed account (TPMA) instead of holding client money internally. Funds sit with a regulated provider, outside the firm's own accounts, with dual-authorisation controls and real-time reporting.
For transactions where fund release depends on predefined conditions being met, property completions, M&A deal structures, high-value private sales, a regulated escrow account provides an additional layer of independent security that a traditional client account simply can't replicate.
These aren't edge-case solutions for unusual transactions. They're the infrastructure that lets your firm handle the complex, high-value, cross-border work that clients increasingly bring to you, without concentrating the compliance risk inside your own operations.
The firms making the news this week didn't fail because they were bad firms. They failed because the infrastructure they relied on wasn't built to carry the weight placed on it.
“The SRA has opened the door to TPMAs. The only question is: will you walk through it before you’re pushed?” — “Waiting for a regulation to change isn’t a strategy, it’s a risk.” — Interpolitan Money
The practical next step
Interpolitan Money provides FCA-regulated TPMA solutions built specifically for UK law firms, aligned with SRA Accounts Rules 2019, with setup in 48-hours.
Our escrow service covers M&A transactions, property completions, SPV, litigation settlements, and high-value private deals across 50+ currencies and 160+ countries.
If your firm is reassessing its client money infrastructure, whether as a defensive measure or as a foundation for growth, our TPMA and escrow teams are ready to talk.
Right now, qualifying law firms can access 12 months of TPMA service for the cost of 9. No hidden fees. Use offer reference TPMA9 when you speak to us. View full promotional terms.
Ready to Protect Your Clients and Your Firm?
Interpolitan provides fully aligned FCA-regulated TPMA services for legal professionals across the UK and internationally. We help mitigate risk, simplify compliance, and future-proof your operations.
Missed our TPMA series?
Read our 5 partTPMA series
TPMAs & Misappropriation Risk. How law firms can protect client funds
The SRA's TPMA Push: Why Law Firms Should Rethink Holding Client Money
FCA Oversight of TPMA providers. What law firms need to know.
Court-approved. How TPMAs are supporting conveyancing and estate transactions
TPMA vs Traditional client accounts. A cost-benefit for law firms
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