Transmenu powered by JoomlArt.com - Mambo Joomla Professional Templates Club

It has been brought to the attention of the Bar Council recently that certain banks and financial institutions have been inducing members of the Malaysian Bar to breach the law in the area of charging fees in respect of conveyancing matters.

The Solicitors’ fees for preparing legal documents are governed by the Solicitors’ Remuneration Order 1991 (SRO 1991) made pursuant to subsection (3) of Section 113 of the Legal Profession Act 1976. SRO 1991 has been gazetted as law vide P.U.(A) 475/1995 as amended by P.U.(A)80/1994.

Under the law it is the statutory duty of every solicitor to follow the scale fees strictly in compliance with the requirements of the SRO 1991. Order 7 of the SRO 1991 clearly states that “There shall be no discount of scale fees unless expressly provided by the Schedules”. Any breach of such statutory duty by any member of the Malaysian Bar may render him to disciplinary proceedings. However, some banks and financial institutions knowing full well of such law, unreasonably and unscrupulously insist that the solicitors acting for them reduce the statutory scale fees for attending to legal documentation is contravention of such law. The Bar Council calls on these institutions to refrain from inducing or prevailing upon the solicitors to breach the law. If these institutions want to project their image of being “generous” to the public, they have other resources within their control, such as reducing interest rates or processing charges etc. Such act is within their own discretion, and it is lawful and perfectly in order. The charging of statutory scale fees in strict compliance with the SRO 1991 should be left entirely to the solicitor concerned.

Disciplinary action will be taken against members of the Bar who breach SRO 1991 and succumb to requests by banks and financial institutions. In this respect the Bar Council will strictly enforce Ruling 21 of the Conveyancing Practice Rulings (1997) which reads as follows:-

“In order to ascertain whether the Solicitors’ Remuneration Order 1991 (as amended), any rules or rulings of the Bar Council have been complied with or whether the Solicitor’s duties as Stakeholders have been performed, the Bar Council acting either on its own motion or upon receipt of information or complaint may require any Solicitor or firm of Solicitors to produce at a time and place to be fixed by the Bar Council, the Solicitor’s or Solicitors’ books and/or records of accounts files, vouchers, bills, receipts and any other necessary documents for inspection and the making of copies thereof by any accountant or firm of accountants or such other persons appointed by the Bar Council. The report on the results of such inspection may be used as a basis for proceedings under section 94 of the Legal Profession Act 1976”.

In order to ensure compliance of Ruling 21, the Bar Council will:

i) carry out checks at random on all bills and receipts issued by legal firms in respect of conveyancing matters;

ii) a strict enforcement of Ruling 21 would be effected by the Bar Council as from 1st January 2000 by examining all relevant documents mentioned therein.

Dated: 24th November 1999

R. R. Chelvarajah
President

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed