The Solicitors Regulation Authority has intervened into a third firm in the space of a week, this time closing down a 21-year-old east London practice.

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The regulator said today it had closed down Crimson Phoenix Solicitors Ltd, which was established in 2002 in Barking.

The intervention also applies to the firm’s managers, Adiel Chowdhry and Tehmina Malik. The SRA said there was reason to suspect dishonesty on Chowdhry’s part in connection with his practice as a solicitor. Malik was subject to intervention on the basis of reason to suspect failure to comply with Solicitors Act rules.

Crimson Phoenix offered services in conveyancing, commercial property, immigration, divorce and probate. According to Companies House records, Chowdhry, 36, became a director of the business in August last year. He qualified as a solicitor in 2021.

Today’s SRA intervention is the latest in a flurry of activity by the regulator to step in and handle client matters on behalf of different firms. Last week, it intervened into Hartlepool practice MSP Legal Services LLP on the basis that managers Andrew Lynsey Jones and Fiona Jane Smith and the firm itself had failed to comply with the rules. Both Jones and Smith had been solicitors since 2000.

It is understood that all staff – around a dozen, according to the most recent company accounts – were made redundant following the intervention.

Finally, in the past week the SRA intervened into former Sheffield-based Fry Law Limited to protect client interests, after the firm was placed into administration in September 2021. Its former owner, disability rights campaigner Chris Fry, was charged earlier this year with causing or allowing inaccurate and/or misleading information to be provided in a professional indemnity insurance proposal form. The allegations are as yet unproven and Fry is due to contest them when he appears before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

The SRA has intervened into 21 different practices in the past year, up from 16 in the previous 12 months. Many of the most recent interventions have been firms linked to the Metamorph Group which were shut down either side of Christmas. As of January, more than 1,000 boxes of live matters required attention, with nearly 60,000 boxes already collected and stored.