The Accident Group's claims vetting firm faces Law Society investigation

Rowe Cohen, the Manchester firm which operated a claims vetting service for collapsed claims manager The Accident Group (TAG), is being investigated by the Law Society.

Rowe Cohen was responsible for filtering personal injury claims that came through TAG to the company's panel of solicitors. A Law Society spokesperson said: "The focus of the investigation is on whether the relationship between Rowe Cohen and TAG complied with professional requirements."

Although inspectors are not obliged to tell law firms why they are under investigation, one Rowe Cohen source expressed frustration with the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors, the Law Society's regulatory arm, for not doing so. "We suspect this is something to do with TAG, but we've not been told," he said.

Rowe Cohen assessed thousands of claims a month for TAG, which were then passed to solicitors' firms which would pursue them on a no-win no-fee basis. The firm has since closed the vetting unit it set up for TAG, resulting in nine redundancies and 10 staff being redeployed within the firm.

Rowe Cohen managing partner Simon Cohen told The Lawyer: "Since the ongoing inspection commenced, we've cooperated fully with the inspection, giving full access to all our records and documents.

"We're confident we adhered to the vetting criteria set down under the TAG scheme at all times and that we've not acted in any way that breached our professional code of conduct.
"We look forward to the inspection being concluded as soon as possible."