Coke-Wallis v ICAEW - update

The ICLR reports that, on 18 December 2009, the Supreme Court granted leave to appeal the decision in Coke-Wallis v ICAEW. The issues heard by the Court of Appeal, and which will presumably now be re-heard on the ground of general public importance, were autrefois acquit and abuse of process in disciplinary hearings.   

Curiously, when the ICAEW were on notice that the Supreme Court was due to hear the PTA, a hunt around the ICAEW website shows that they were not deterred in scheduling another disciplinary hearing against Coke-Wallis for as recently as 9 December 2009.  Does that mean that the ICAEW saw it as beneath them to await on the Supreme Court to opine barely a week later ?  Or was it that the hearing was inadvertently scheduled  due to an administrative error, with the ICAEW  overlooking the mere detail that, for only the second time in its history, the ICAEW was facing a hearing before the highest court in the land ?  There is, as yet, no published record of  a disciplinary hearing actually taking place on 9 December, which lends support to the view that the listing was an error.  Notwithstanding, when the only explanations are arrogance  or incompetence, neither will play well when abuse of process is in point.

Having previously dealt with Coke-Wallis in his practising days, and being one of a good number of his professional contacts who were none too happy at the time with the seemingly disproportionate actions and attitiudes of the regulatory bodies, it is difficult not to conclude that, after a whopping 8 years and  still counting, the motivations of the ICAEW, in particular, never did have much to do with their offical remit. 

The substantive hearing by the Supreme Court should be before summer 2010.  

Further update here.