Claim No: CL-2023-000687 - [2025] EWHC 1157 (Comm)

RSUK has a debt claim against Barclays in the amount of the Balance in the RSUK USD Client Account (Irwin Mitchell v Director of Revenue and Customs Protection Office [2008] EWCA Crim 1741,[31]).

Under s.85(a) of the Solicitors Act 1974, Barclays is under no obligation to make any inquiry, and is not deemed to have any knowledge of any right of any person to any money paid or credited to the account, which it would not incur or be under or be deemed to have in the case of an account kept by a person entitled absolutely to all the money paid or credited to it.

Under s.85(b), Barclays is not entitled to exercise any right of set-off in relation to the credit balance of that account “in respect of any liability of the solicitor to the bank .. other than a liability in connection with the account.”

A solicitor may be authorised to make deductions from sums held on behalf of a client in the client account to meet a bill due from that client where the client has agreed or is treated as having agreed the amount of the bill (Menzies v Oakwood Solicitors Limited [2024] UKSC 34). As noted in Irwin Mitchell v Director of Revenue and Customs Protection Office, [32] there are rules which “govern the means of exercise of the solicitors' contractual right to payment from the fund, which arose from the agreement and the work done.”