ACCA faces £300,000 lawsuit

ACCA is being sued for more than £300,000 in damages in a legal action brought by a member who was disciplined by the association in 1996.

Dr Raymond Stanbridge, from Nettleham, Lincolnshire, has lodged a claim with the High Court alleging that he was treated with gross unfairness during a disciplinary hearing three years ago. According to the writ, the hearing cost him around £20,000, including a £5,000 fine and £3,230 in costs.

ACCA’s disciplinary committee found Stanbridge guilty of several charges including providing information to Pannell Kerr Forster which he knew, or should have known, to be false, and failing to disclose a contingent liability in the accounts.

In the writ, Stanbridge says ACCA’s ‘proceedings were conducted unfairly and oppressively in relation to time limits’ and left him ‘insufficient time to properly defend the allegations made’.

The writ says that other allegations by ACCA were ‘too ill-defined’ and accuses the association of the ‘oppressive introduction of new allegations at a late stage in the proceedings’.

Stanbridge’s writ also accuses the association of allowing insufficient time for a fair hearing as one of the members of the disciplinary committee left early to catch a plane.

ACCA chief executive Anthea Rose will be fighting the writ. A spokesman said: ‘We have received the writ from Dr Stanbridge and we believe this case to be without merit. We have appointed solicitors and they will be vigorously defending on our behalf.’