She has been suspended for one month, and has been ordered to pay costs of $16,135.82.
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Richmond real estate lawyer Hong Guo has been suspended again for professional misconduct for failing to ensure six clients’ advance payments of cash funds were deposited into a trust account, according to the Law Society of B.C.
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The society said Guo’s clients didn’t provide their informed consent to Guo, who treated the cash funds as her own property on receipt. She also received trust funds in breach of a court order that prohibited her from handling client trust funds.
The panel considered the serious nature of the misconduct, Guo’s extensive professional conduct record that showed a pattern of failures to comply with law society regulatory requirements, undertakings and orders, the range of sanctions in other cases and the need to maintain public confidence in the profession.
It also considered mitigating factors such as the modest amount of trust funds mishandled, that none of the clients suffered harm or lost money, and that her misconduct wasn’t intentional, the society said.
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The panel noted that Guo is under significant practice conditions and has been for more than four years.
She has been suspended for one month, and has been ordered to pay costs of $16,135.82.
Last year, Guo, who was suspended for one year for her mishandling of trust accounts from which millions of dollars disappeared in 2016, faced numerous disciplinary actions.
In eight actions, six of those filed in 2020 and 2021, Guo, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Richmond in 2018, faced allegations related to conflict of interest in the purchase of a sawmill, a real estate development project and a purchase of shares in a company. She also faced allegations of misconduct for misappropriation or improperly handling client payments and mishandling trust funds.
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In her recent one-year suspension that starts Dec. 1, a tribunal found that Guo had committed professional misconduct by failing to supervise her employees, failing to comply with trust accounting rules and leaving a series of blank signed trust cheques with her bookkeeper, which facilitated the bookkeeper’s theft of $7.5 million of client trust funds.
In the past, Guo has said that she was a victim. She blamed her former employees for the trust account situation, saying she had to trust and delegate work to staff, given the size of her practice.
— With files from Gordon Hoekstra
ticrawford@postmedia.com
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