The Solicitors Regulation Authority has moved in to formally shut down a firm which closed its doors last week. BLB Solicitors, which had six offices in the west of England, was placed into administration on Thursday and its staff made redundant.
The SRA revealed yesterday it had carried out an intervention into BLB after the firm was made subject to an insolvency event.
The regulator does not intervene into every firm that goes into administration but can do so to protect client interests, although there is no suggestion of wrongdoing in this case.
Gareth Buckley and Steve Elliott of The Insolvency Company, part of Sumer Group, were appointed as joint administrators, having previously worked with the BLB leadership team to explore all available options to preserve the business and protect employment.
The administrators have confirmed a buyer was previously found and a sale of the firm as a going concern was agreed in principle but the buyer withdrew at a late stage, leaving insufficient time to seek viable alternatives, forcing the firm to close and all staff made redundant.
Gareth Buckley, head of insolvency at The Insolvency Company said: ‘We worked hard to secure a sale of the business as a going concern, which would have preserved a significant number of jobs, and we had a deal in place.
‘It is deeply disappointing that it fell through at a late stage. Due to the timing and lack of available funding there was no alternative other than to cease trading and dismiss the workforce. Our immediate priority now is to ensure clients and creditors are kept informed and to support employees through the process of making claims to the Redundancy Payments Service.’
The firm, which had 89 staff as of last March, operated from sites in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire and offered a range of personal and business legal services.
The BLB intervention is another issue for the SRA to deal with on top of three interventions for various reasons in the space of a week and the potentially costly closure earlier this year of PM Law and its various trading names.
Meanwhile, a Manchester wealth management business which also provided legal services under SRA regulation has entered administration. LCM Family Limited had been authorised as an alternative business structure since 2016 but is now closing, with administrators appointed from BTG Begbies Traynor.
The firm had agreed a voluntary requirement with the Financial Conduct Authority last month to restrict the activities it could undertake.
