The Court of Appeal has today handed down judgment in Law Society v Blavo. Overturning the decision of the trial judge [2017] 1 WLR 4514, the Court of Appeal has held that intervention costs incurred by the Law Society where it has instructed a solicitor as agent are a debt for a liquidated sum capable of being the subject of a statutory demand and a bankruptcy petition. The Court of Appeal dismissed Mr Blavo’s Respondent’s notice, upholding the trial judge’s decision that Mr Blavo did have a practice which could be the subject of an intervention and that Mr Blavo could not, in defence of a claim for intervention costs, argue that the intervention into his practice should never have happened, as the Solicitors Act 1974 sets out an exclusive code for challenging an intervention which Mr Blavo had not utilised. The Court of Appeal also held that, since Mr Blavo was the sole owner and sole manager of Blavo & Co Solicitors Ltd, his practice as a solicitor was co-extensive with the business the firm, with the consequence that Mr Blavo was liable for all of the intervention costs incurred by the Law Society following the interventions into his practice and into the business of the firm. The Law Society’s statutory demands against Mr Blavo for intervention costs have therefore been reinstated. Richard Coleman QC and Chloe Carpenter acted for the Law Society on the appeal. A copy of the Court of Appeal’s judgment can be found here.
