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Vancouver lawyer who wired $2.7 million to Dubai for client under a U.S. stock investigation handed suspension​on October 4, 2025 at 3:00 pm

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.

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A Law Society of B.C. tribunal has handed Vancouver lawyer Neal Burton Wang a four-month suspension for professional misconduct.

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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.

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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.

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“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.

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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.

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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.

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Read More

  1. Vancouver lawyer wired $2.7 million to Dubai for client under a U.S. stock investigation

  2. B.C. lawyer sanctioned for running $6.6 million through trust account without ‘reasonable inquiries’

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Wang did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.

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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.

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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.

 

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