In addition to hundreds of firms already under investigation, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) will be investigating a further 205 firms that appear to be operating without compliance officers.
The discovery of additional firms is reportedly due to an SRA data cleansing exercise.
A report written by the SRA Chief Executive, Anthony Townsend, states: “It is likely that some firms are in the partial waiver pool and some have closed, but each case will need to be reviewed to ascertain what action-if any-needs to be undertaken”.
The SRA are now conducting desk based investigations into the most serious issues for example failure to disclose criminal convictions and sanctions imposed by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
Mr Townsend said “These matters are likely to proceed to formal adjudication”.
More than half of the firms that have not nominated officers are thought to be low risk because they have either closed, approved officers for a new body after merging, or sought a waiver.
