A Brighton company whose employees were caught encouraging people to invent injuries for compensation claims by the Sunday Times has been fined £91,845 for breaking data rules.
Complete Claim Solutions, based in Sea View Way, Woodingdean, was found by the Ministry of Justice to be in breach of rules around professional diligence, record keeping and audit trails and obtaining referrals, leads or data from third parties lawfully.
It was also in breach of observing relevant laws and regulations, and acting in a way which puts a solicitor in breach of their professional regulations – and more fines may follow as another investigation, which started days after the Sunday Times expose, is still pending.
A statement on the Ministry of Justice website said: “As a result of an investigation that was commenced on 13 February 2015 into complaints received, the Claims Management Regulator has imposed a financial penalty of £91,845 on Complete Claim Solutions Ltd.
“A further investigation commenced on 8 July 2015 following fresh allegations is ongoing.”
In July, The Sunday Times published the report of a journalist who spent a month working undercover at its Brighton HQ earlier this year, during which he was coached in how to persuade clients to make up or exaggerate claims, and shown the Leonardo di Caprio film The Wolf of Wall Street as inspiration.
The report, by Josh Boswell, said: “The firm, which has offices in Brighton, Croydon, Leicester and Crawley, also circumvents a ban on referral fees paid by legal firms to claims management companies by exploiting a loophole in the law. It is also in potential breach of data protection laws by phoning people who have requested not to be cold called.”
CCS managing director, Andrew Hogarth, told the paper the company needed to review elements of its training but denied any malpractice.
In a statement he said: “I would like to state in the strongest terms that we do not coach or encourage clients to make false personal injury claims, that are in any way fraudulent or in breach of criminal law. We deny any conspiracy to defraud. We deny breaching any data protection laws.”
