Hurst v SRA: How the Hurst decision was overturned

In Hurst v SRA [2026] EWHC 85 (Admin), the High Court overturned the decision of the SDT to fine media lawyer Ashley Hurst.

The decision calms fears that solicitors could face disciplinary action simply for using without prejudice correspondence to urge opponents to desist from allegedly unlawful conduct.

It is also forms part of an ongoing debate about the concept of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) and the proper scope of privilege and confidentiality.

This article explores the background to the Hurst case and discusses the reasons for the High Court’s decision, which included concerns over:

• charging practices
• standards of reasoning, and
• fairness in disciplinary proceedings

The initial decision

In July 2022, the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadim Zahawi, instructed Ashley Hurst to challenge allegations made by former lawyer and expert tax commentator Dan Neidle.

Neidle had alleged that Zahawi had lied about his tax affairs.

Hurst sent an email urging Neidle to retract the allegation.

The email was marked “Confidential & without prejudice” and contained a warning that the email should not be published or otherwise referred to.

Neidle forwarded the correspondence to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), and an investigation followed.

The Solicitor’s Regulation Authority’s (SRA) case

The SRA alleged that Hurst’s actions amounted to a SLAPP. Within the formal Notice of Referral the SRA cited its November 2022 Warning Notice on SLAPPs.

The notice stated that the use of “the restrictive labels” in this instance was improper because:

“the conditions for using the relevant terms were not fulfilled;

“the restrictive labels were intimidating and inaccurate and the true intention of the labels was to prevent the email / letter being disclosed to the public when this would otherwise be permissible.

“As such, the use of the labels was oppressive in nature and bore the hallmarks of a SLAPP.”

In May 2024, the SRA applied to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) for a decision.

It alleged that sending the email and attempting to restrict Neidle’s right to publish or discuss its contents was a breach of professional standards.

The SRA said this was misconduct in the form of:

• abuse of position
• misleading, or attempting to mislead
• making assertions or putting forward statements, representations or submissions which were not properly arguable
• acting in a way that did not uphold public trust and confidence, and
• failing to act with integrity

The SDT decision

The SDT handed down its initial decision following a hearing in December 2024, with written reasons following five months later.

It concluded that Hurst had applied the without prejudice (WP) label to the email to prevent Neidle from publishing its contents, and not because it genuinely met the criteria for WP protection.

After deciding that Hurst needed to show that the email included genuinely confidential material, it concluded there was no proper basis for describing the email as confidential either.

The SDT described the misconduct as “very serious”, but specifically found that it did not amount to a SLAPP.

Hurst was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £260,000 in costs to the SRA.

Reasons behind the High Court’s decision to overturn

Hurst appealed against the decision and Mrs Justice Collins Rice allowed the appeal in full, concluding:

“The decision challenged in this appeal was insufficiently analysed and reasoned, vitiated by misdirection and error of law, and unfair.”

The judge criticised multiple fundamental errors of approach in both the SRA’s framing of the case and the SDT’s analysis.

Wrong starting point

The judge held that the tribunal had approached the analysis from the wrong starting point.

By the time of the hearing, the focus had been reframed from whether the labels were improperly applied to whether the entire email was an improper attempt to restrict publication.

The SDT uncritically adopted the premise that Neidle had a right to publish and treated any attempt to restrain publication as inherently improper. This was a misdirection.

Wrong legal test

The initial tribunal had focused on whether Hurst’s email was actually confidential or without privilege (WP), rather than assessing whether it could arguably be.

The latter would have been the correct test for assessing if Hurst’s conduct was improper.

The tribunal’s analysis of the WP issue ignored or dismissed relevant authorities and applied irrelevant ones.

It also failed to recognise that the email contained clear hallmarks of a genuine attempt to resolve a dispute by:

• identifying a legal dispute
• making concessions, and
• offering a retraction as an alternative to litigation

These elements provided a reasonable basis for WP protection.

Neidle’s own later request for an “open” letter implicitly acknowledged that the email was WP.

The SDT also misstated the law on confidentiality and failed to consider relevant factors, including the express confidentiality warning.

The email contained personal and financial information that was:

• not in the public domain, and
• provided for a limited purpose

So, there was an arguable basis for confidentiality.

Unsupported findings

The SDT concluded that Hurst’s primary motive was to stifle publication and gave no reason for rejecting his explicit evidence denying that.

That was found to be unfair and irrational, especially given the seriousness of the allegations.

The judge described the SDT’s reasoning as “condensed to the point of compromised intelligibility”.

It did not explain how the law was applied or how conclusions were reached.

This alone would have justified overturning the decision.

Costs awarded

Following her decision to set aside the SDT's decision, Mrs Justic Collins Rice granted a costs order.

This entitled Mr Hurst to a reimbursement of the £50,000 fine, though he must apply to HM Treasury to claim it.

In a consent order issued on 5 February 2026, Collins Rice J also said the SRA must return the £260,000 Mr Hurst paid them in costs for the SDT hearing, plus interest.

In total, the SRA now must pay Mr Hurst:

• costs of both the tribunal and the appeal proceedings, both on the standard basis, and
• the interim payment of £400,000 in respect of both proceedings

Lessons from this decision

Issues with prosecutions over SLAPPs

The judgment points up the problem with prosecutions over so-called SLAPPs.

Whether a publication is unlawful is at the heart of the underlying dispute between the lawyer’s client and the supposed defendant.

It cannot be right to start from a virtual presumption that the lawyer and client are engaged in a conspiracy to stifle truth.

The need for clear and fair regulations

More broadly, the judgment highlights concerns about regulatory clarity and fairness.

As the judge stated, a disciplinary tribunal is:

“a quasi-judicial decision-making body with huge powers over the reputation and livelihoods of the professionals who appear before it, and important responsibilities to the public and the wider profession …

“an appellate court must at least be able to follow and understand at a basic level the route by which a tribunal has reached its conclusions”.

In Hurst, the difficulty appears to have stemmed partly from lack of clarity in the charges, which had formed a generalised attack on Mr Hurst’s motives and intentions by the time they had reached the SDT.

The problem with overlapping charges

A further issue is the SRA’s tendency to charge the same conduct under multiple overlapping headings.

This often includes a catch-all allegation of lack of integrity.

At paragraph 61 of this case, the judge stressed that:

“A failure to act with integrity is an imputation of unethical conduct.

“As such, it is more than a portmanteau reference to a corpus of professional standards.

“It connotes an element of personal substandard ethical behaviour or untrustworthiness”.

This is a warning to regulators to identify precisely:

• which obligation the professional was aware of, and
• on what basis was there a deliberate decision not to abide by it

This article does not constitute legal advice and no duty is assumed to any reader. Advice specific to the particular situation should always be sought.