Admitted Discipline Violations

Administrative Penalty

Summary of Rule 4-59 - Administrative Penalty

David K. Plunkett

Location: Vancouver, BC

Called to the bar: August 1, 2002

Penalty deemed to be admitted: November 7, 2022

FACTS

On October 4, 2022, an administrative penalty was assessed against David K. Plunkett for $3000. The administrative penalty resulted from breaches of Rules 3-102 and 3-103 of the Law Society Rules 2015, which require a lawyer to verify the identity of instructing clients, and to verify the directors and majority shareholders for organizational clients, for any file where the lawyer provides legal services in respect of a financial transaction.

Specifically, between January 1, 2020 and October 15, 2021, Plunkett:

  1. failed to verify the identity, or could not provide documentation to confirm identities had been verified, for the instructing individuals in five client files; and
  2. failed to record the names and addresses of all persons who own 25 per cent of an organization along with the date when this information was obtained for four organizational corporate clients.

Plunkett paid the penalty on November 7, 2022, and has therefore been deemed to admit the above breach per Rule 4-59(5)(a).