FCA bans former Kingly Solicitors owner Nurul Miah from financial services after £28m in unauthorised client money transfers
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned Nurul Miah, the former non-legal manager and owner of UK-based law firm Kingly Solicitors Limited, from working in financial services. The FCA found that Miah dishonestly caused or allowed more than £28 million to be withdrawn from client accounts without authorisation between April 2019 and July 2020. The action follows a parallel finding by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) that £10 million of client money was missing and had been used by Miah for his own benefit. The SRA had already imposed what it described as its largest-ever fine of nearly £4 million for those breaches. Therese Chambers, the FCA's executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said the ban was imposed 'to protect consumers and help maintain confidence in the financial system'. The dual-regulator enforcement is notable because it illustrates how a law firm's client account can fall within the FCA's jurisdiction where the firm handles regulated financial activity, creating a concurrent regulatory exposure alongside the legal profession's own disciplinary regime.
Why this matters
This enforcement action is significant for three reasons. First, it demonstrates the FCA's willingness to act against individuals at the intersection of legal and financial services where client money is misused, even when the SRA has already taken action. Second, the scale of the alleged misappropriation, over £28 million across 15 months, and the SRA's record fine signal that regulators are escalating consequences for client money failures at law firms. Third, the concurrent FCA and SRA action highlights a regulatory gap that compliance teams at law firms handling regulated activities must actively manage: obligations under both the SRA Accounts Rules and FCA client asset (CASS) requirements can apply simultaneously, and a breach of one does not insulate against the other.
On the Ground
This case generates work across regulatory compliance, financial crime, and professional discipline practices. Law firms with regulated subsidiaries or affiliates need to review their client money controls against both SRA and FCA requirements. Regulatory lawyers will be advising on the scope of FCA jurisdiction over law firm activities and the interaction with the SRA's supervisory regime. A trainee on a regulatory matter of this type would assist with drafting compliance gap analysis memos, updating remediation trackers, and preparing regulatory notification drafts for submission to the FCA or SRA.
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“How does the FCA's jurisdiction interact with the SRA's oversight of law firms, and what does the Kingly Solicitors case tell us about the risks for non-lawyer managers at firms handling client money?”
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