Two Addleshaw Goddard partners have been fined £5,000 each by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after an investigation revealed that they had misidentified disbursements on dozens of client bills.

The SRA was originally investigating Addleshaws real estate partner Mark Gilbert after the firm reported that an internal inquiry had uncovered "apparent discrepancies related to [Gilbert's] expenses and disbursements". But as the SRA leafed through his invoices it discovered that fellow real estate partners Emmett Peters' and David Wilson's work also raised questions. This week, following a referral to the SDT, Peters was ruled to have "misdescribed" disbursements in 94 bills and Wilson was found to have made mistakes on 74.

Addleshaws partners have a Marmite sandwich on the bus home yesterday

 
The pair's barrister said they had already suffered severe financial penalties because Addleshaws froze their partnership positions at 2011 levels after its own investigation, The Lawyer reports. He said the move resulted in a six figure loss for one of them.

Addleshaws has released a statement emphasising that it is not the subject of any disciplinary action, that the SRA accepts that Emmett and Wilson were not dishonest, and that the disbursements "however they may have been described" were properly incurred and chargeable. However the firm refused to dispell the whiff of mystery and clarify what the disbursements were or how they were misdescribed. So until the tribunal publishes its judgment in several weeks, it will remain unclear whether the mix-up was as simple as confusing lunch with a taxi, erm, 94 times, or something more embarrassing.

Meanwhile Gilbert, who resigned from Addleshaws in May 2011, is facing his own hearing in January next year. Neither Addleshaws nor the SDT were prepared to say what charges he is facing.