Crefovi challenges SRA over post-Brexit bias

SRA Law Society post-Brexit discrimination against cross-border solicitors

Crefovi SELAS today publicly denounces the ongoing campaign of retaliation, procedural abuse, and discriminatory treatment directed at its founder and managing partner, Annabelle Gauberti, Solicitor of England & Wales and avocat à la Cour (Paris Bar), by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Law Society of England & Wales.

1. SRA’s post-Brexit guidance and dual registration

On 23 July 2021, the SRA’s Ethics Guidance Team provided Ms Gauberti with formal written advice confirming that she could continue to practise cross-border post-Brexit lawfully by maintaining:

a freelance solicitor registration (SRA no. 828144), authorised and regulated personally by the SRA to provide all legal services – including reserved legal services such as litigation- in England & Wales; and

a parallel role as the SRA-regulated solicitor (SRA no. 446075), founding and managing partner of Crefovi SELAS a non-SRA regulated French law firm registered under French law and regulated by the Paris Bar, yet with a London office, referenced by the SRA in its directory under SRA number 570503.

This dual structure was explicitly recommended by the SRA itself as the correct model for solicitors operating transnationally after Brexit, in its enclosed letter dated 23 July 2021.

2. The retaliatory conduct

Despite this clear guidance, since mid-2024 the SRA and Law Society have engaged in an escalating series of unlawful acts against Ms Gauberti and Crefovi SELAS, including:

misrepresenting her dual registration as “misleading” despite it being formally authorised by the SRA;

refusing to comply with statutory subject access requests under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018;

publishing defamatory and disparaging material about Ms Gauberti on the SRA’s public disciplinary register, in breach of Rule 3.2 of the SRA Decision Publication Policy (2023); and

coordinating intimidation tactics designed to silence legitimate legal proceedings filed by Crefovi SELAS.

3. The origin of the abuse: a baseless client complaint

This campaign began after the regulators and the Legal Ombudsman received a vexatious complaint from a former client, Mr Kamal Ali / My Salah Mat Limited, relating to services rendered in 2023–2024.

The complaint concerns the same matters that were already ruled upon by the Paris Bar’s binding decision of 23 December 2024, which found no professional misconduct. Despite this, the Legal Ombudsman confirmed on 17 September 2025 that it intends to investigate Mr Ali’s grievance — an investigation that overlaps entirely with issues of professional regulation outside its jurisdiction and already adjudicated abroad.

Rather than respecting the Paris Bar’s final decision and the cross-border limits of Legal Ombudsman’s competence, the SRA and Law Society have leveraged this pending complaint as a pretext for retaliatory escalation, including the initiation of unlawful disciplinary publicity and renewed threats against Ms Gauberti and Crefovi SELAS.

4. Crefovi’s legal action

On 7 May 2025, Ms Gauberti and Crefovi SELAS issued Claim M01CL921 before the Central London County Court under Part 7 of the Civil Procedure Rules, alleging:

breaches of the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR Articles 12 & 15;

discriminatory conduct under the Equality Act 2010;

abuse of dominant position and restrictive practices under the Competition Act 1998;

defamatory and misleading publications under the Defamation Act 2013; and

harassment contrary to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

The claim also seeks injunctive relief to restrain further retaliation and to compel the regulators to comply fully with statutory data-protection obligations.

5. Procedural obstruction and medical incapacity

In parallel with these proceedings, Ms Gauberti has been recovering from a double fracture of her right arm and orthopaedic surgery at the Institut Français de Chirurgie de la Main (IFCM) in Paris on 14 October 2025.
Despite certified medical evidence confirming her incapacity to travel, the defendants’ solicitors — Capsticks LLP and Shoosmiths LLP — have insisted that the hearing proceed today, 11 November 2025, before the Central London County Court.
This constitutes a flagrant breach of procedural fairness (CPR 1.1 & 39.5) and Article 6 ECHR, amounting to regulatory harassment through litigation pressure.

6. Abuse of dominance and competition-law implications

Crefovi SELAS contends that the SRA and Law Society’s conduct constitutes an abuse of regulatory dominance under section 18 of the Competition Act 1998, Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, and Articles L. 420-1 and L. 420-2 of the French Code de commerce.
By selectively restricting reserved legal activities such as litigation to UK-established solicitors, these regulators distort competition, foreclose market access for EU-headquartered law firms, and undermine the principle of parity between UK-based and EU-based providers of English legal services.

7. Regulatory escalation

Crefovi SELAS is now:

filing formal complaints with the UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA), the European Commission’s DG COMP, and the Autorité de la Concurrence (France) concerning coordinated anti-competitive behaviour by UK regulators;

requesting the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to investigate ongoing data-protection and administrative breaches; and

seeking injunctive relief before the Central London County Court to stay further retaliatory actions.

8. Statement from Annabelle Gauberti

‟This campaign of coercion and retaliation is unlawful as pleaded in Claim M01CL921 and reflects a deeper structural bias against cross-border practitioners who built their practices in good faith on the SRA’s own post-Brexit guidance. I will not be intimidated into silence or procedural exhaustion. The law applies to regulators as much as to those they regulate.”