Pannone Solicitors - Manchester

1. The case concerned is a contractor for Defra during FMD 2001, who was paid his final principal invoices for equipment hired by Defra in 2003 following the last invoice in July 2001 – by then he was in liquidation

2. He was advised by Defra’s own accountants that he was entitled to Statutory Interest of £60K, but Defra refused to pay and threatened to take legal action unless credit notes were issued

3. A claim was issued within limitation period. The solicitor involved, who did sterling work, was unable to retain the case because of court involvement in other Defra cases.

4. After failure by a London solicitor, the case was taken up by Pannone who drafted a claim for £1.8million (due mainly as hire equipment was not returned by Defra, but taken away from sites and destroyed on Defra’s orders).

5. An unless order to supply details of the assignment of rights was issued on 6th March 2008 for 4.00pm 28th March

6. Pannone did not contact the Dutch lawyers re assignment until 26th March, despite client requests.

7. They asked Dutch lawyers if a 2005 document, already rejected by the court should be sent – the Dutch lawyers replied within 20 minutes to confirm that the letter emailed the day before to Pannone on 27th March was the important one.

8. Pannone did not send that letter, but only the 2005 one: when asked why not, Pannone did not give reasons.

9. Pannone withdrew from the case a few days before the July 28 2008 hearing, allegedly (disputed) because not sufficient money was in client account.

10. On July 28th judge ruled unless order had not been complied with and awarded Defra costs, as the copy of the original assignment FvC – representing himself in person - produced was out of time and not admissible.

11. During this time, Pannone thought they had complied with the unless order, and confirmed that in January 2009.

12. Pannone is not responding on more than one request for sending a copy of the ledger. When Alex Megaw went on holiday he charged £ 1,600 for handing the case over to a colleague.

13. The Legal Complaints Service held that to send the wrong document lay within a solicitor’s discretion, did not answer how can it be ‘discretion’ to do that, and shut the case.

14. Roger Pannone was President of the Law Society of England and Wales

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Pannone Solicitors - Manchester

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