One of the most controversial characters in Richmond’s law profession has been found guilty of professional misconduct, after a Law Society of BC tribunal.
Real estate and immigration lawyer Hong Guo, who failed in a 2018 bid to become Richmond mayor, failed to properly supervise her bookkeeper, improperly delegated trust accounting to him and later misappropriated millions of dollars in trust funds, according to the society’s ruling last month.
The society also found that Guo had breached several undertakings and orders, which it had imposed earlier this year after an investigation into her practises.
In her defence, she claimed that the aforementioned bookkeeper stole $7.5 million from her law firm’s trust accounts in 2016, before laundering the cash at a casino and fleeing to China.
Guo told the society’s disciplinary panel that her mistake “was placing trust in her employee who took advantage of her trust to commit a sophisticated scam” and her actions didn’t amount to professional misconduct.
She said her subsequent attempts to repay to her clients the “stolen” $7.5 million – which the society ruled as a breach of trust accounting rules – was an honest bid to minimize the overall impact of the missing trust funds on her clients.
The society, however, disagreed and Guo is now facing a possible $50,000 fine (max), conditions or restrictions on her practice, a suspension or even expulsion from her profession when she is called back for a disciplinary hearing next March.
“The Law Society says that the theft occurred because (Guo) herself created the lax conditions that allowed the theft to occur,” stated the society’s ruling.
“(Guo) did not properly supervise her bookkeeper, and she failed to use best practices in running a very busy real estate practice. (Guo’s) lack of supervision, combined with the use of pre-signed blank trust cheques and breaches of Law Society trust accounting rules, created the conditions that gave rise to the employee theft of around $7.5 million.”
According to the ruling, “From late February to March 31, 2016, $7.5 million in trust funds were provided to the former conveyancing assistant using the pre-signed blank trust cheques. On April 1, 2016, Guo discovered the theft when she could not find her bookkeeper to review her monthly trust reconciliation statements.”
The panel heard earlier this year how Guo had deposited $2.6 million of her own money and $4 million from an insurance policy to repay the missing millions.
It was in 2018, around the same time as her failed bid to become mayor of Richmond that the society started to probe Guo’s affairs.
