Staffordshire firm Hacking Ashton is first ABS to fail

Hacking Ashton, a Staffordshire solicitors' firm with six offices, has become the first ABS to fail.

The firm, a general civil practice, was awarded an ABS licence by the SRA in February this year. Its closure was reported by the local press earlier this month.

It was based in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and had other offices in towns such as Uttoxeter and Stoke-on-Trent, with 10 partners and 75 staff.

In a separate development, it emerged that the SRA had intervened into another ABS, GPB solicitors in Stratford. In the intervention notice published on its website earlier this month, the regulator said the firm had closed and Yorkshire firm Gordons been appointed intervention agents.

The grounds for the intervention were stated as reason to suspect dishonesty on part of an employee and alleged failure to comply with the accounts' rules.

GPB, a debt recovery and probate specialist, became an ABS in February.

Meanwhile, the number of ABS firms stands at 197, with the total number of valid licences at 200. Irwin Mitchell has three licences while Schillings has two.

Many of Hacking Ashton's files were transferred to Tinsdills, which has three offices in Staffordshire and one in Cheshire. The firm, which has no connection with Hacking Ashton, said on its website:

"We have a significant volume of documents to audit and computerise the records before we can send out any confirmation of the documents we now hold.

"As you can appreciate this is a mammoth undertaking and one that we are working on extremely hard to ensure we are able to contact people as soon as possible."

Administrators for Hacking Ashton have been reported as saying that declining fee income made it impossible for the firm to pay its indemnity insurance premium. Despite efforts to sell the firm, no purchaser came forward.