The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is seeking help in tracking down a claims-handling company that may have based itself overseas in a bid to avoid ­regulation, amid warnings that solicitors who take referrals from the company could face sanctions.

Kevin Rousell, head of the MoJ’s claims management regulation unit, has appealed for information from the public and solicitors to find the firm, or group of firms, thought to be trading under the following three names: National Compensation Consumer Line; Compensation Consumer Survey Line and Personal Injury Hotline. There is no connection with the US firm operating under the same name.

Rousell cautioned that solicitors, and other regulated claims management firms, who took referrals from unauthorised companies would be in breach of their own conduct rules and face sanctions from their respective regulators.

He said: ‘We are not sure if they are three separate companies but our information from various sources mentions those three names. One could be a call centre provider, which we think is based overseas.

‘If based overseas they can be hard to track. There is no direct phone number and they put the phone down if you do manage to get through and start asking questions… referrals which come out of this process should not be able to go anywhere because they are not authorised – so solicitors should not progress them.’

Rousell believes the company or group would target solicitors to ensure the highest asking price for referrals: ‘We assume someone is dealing with them if they are in business, we don’t know, but we are trying to establish if they are selling on’.

He also explained that the MoJ and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) had established a new memorandum of understanding to put information sharing about malpractice on a more formal footing. An SRA spokeswoman urged solicitors to help the MoJ.