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Law360, London (April 23, 2020, 4:06 PM BST) -- The jury hearing the fraud trial of a former banking partner at the London office of U.S. law firm Locke Lord LLP has been discharged amid concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, a court official said Thursday.
The 16-week trial has been halted and rescheduled to begin next year as coronavirus brings much of public life to a halt. (AP)
Denton, 60, was arrested at Birmingham Airport in 2015 and charged with two counts of fraud for allegedly inflicting financial losses on members of a £21 million ($26 million) investment scheme.
Locke Lord is not a party to the trial and is not accused of criminal wrongdoing. But it was fined £500,000 by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in November 2017 — the largest ever fine handed out by the regulator at the time — for failing to properly supervise Denton.
The former banking and finance partner at Mishcon de Reya was fired from Locke Lord in July 2015. He was struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in May 2018 and ordered to pay £70,000 costs.
Reporting restrictions apply to court hearings that take place after suspects are charged with criminal offenses in the run-up to a trial in England.
Locke Lord said in a statement that it is not appropriate to comment on the trial.
"The SRA and Locke Lord cooperatively resolved this matter back in 2017 when the SRA accepted our position that the firm and its senior officers did not act dishonestly or with conscious impropriety," the firm said. "These matters only concerned the actions of Denton and related only to clients for whom he worked."
Denton could not be immediately contacted.
Counsel information was not available.
The case is R v Jonathan Denton, case number T20180600, at Birmingham Crown Court.
--Editing by Ed Harris.
Update: This story has been updated to add comment from Locke Lord.
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