A Law Society of B.C. tribunal has handed Vancouver lawyer Neal Burton Wang a four-month suspension for professional misconduct. Read More
Neal Burton Wang failed to obtain, record and verify client identification documents in relation to several client matters, said a panel.
Neal Burton Wang failed to obtain, record and verify client identification documents in relation to several client matters, said a panel.
Article content
A Law Society of B.C. tribunal has handed Vancouver lawyer Neal Burton Wang a four-month suspension for professional misconduct.
Article content
The misconduct relates to several findings upheld in a review last year, including that Wang had not made reasonable inquiries to get information about the people and companies involved in, and the purpose behind, transactions when he wired $2.7 million from his lawyer’s trust account to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Article content
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
The professional misconduct took place between 2016 and 2018, and involved several different transactions. Those also included the sale of a Toronto condo involving a company in the Caribbean island of Nevis, which did not have a bank account, and where Wang did not know who were the beneficial owners of the company.
Article content
Westcoast Homes
Article content
“The misconduct in this case is both serious and wide-ranging. It occurred over multiple client matters, involved several distinct but related breaches of core regulatory duties and reflected a sustained departure from the standards expected of a practising lawyer,” said the three-member panel, which was led by Thomas Spraggs.
Article content
The panel noted Wang failed to obtain, record and verify client identification documents in relation to several client matters, which form a critical part of the law society’s anti-money-laundering and anti-fraud safeguards.
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
The panel added that the purpose of the client identification and verification regime is to protect both the public and the integrity of the profession from exploitation for illegal purposes.
Article content
Read More
Article content
Wang did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.
Article content
The panel said while Wang, who started practising as a lawyer in 1999, had no prior disciplinary history, which might be considered a mitigating factor, in this instance the breaches were neither minor nor technical.
Article content
An earlier panel found that in June 2018 Wang was instructed on two separate days to wire a total of nearly $2.72 million he held in his trust account to a company in Dubai. The panel noted that one of the clients Wang was dealing with was the subject of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation in which “very serious” allegations were made against him.
Discover more from World Byte News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
