Lawyers have been cleared of any wrongdoing over their pursuit of torture and murder claims against British troops in the Iraq War which were later dismissed as false.
Law firm Leigh Day, its co-founder Martyn Day and his colleagues Sapna Malik and Anna Crowther faced a string of misconduct charges over their handling of the claims against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) alleging the mistreatment and unlawful killing of captives at Camp Abu Naji in Iraq following the Battle of Danny Boy in May 2004.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) prosecuted them following the end of the £31 million Al-Sweady Inquiry, which found the most serious claims of murder and torture were “entirely false” and the product of “deliberate lies”.
But a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) panel found on Friday that none of the allegations levelled at the lawyers were proved.
Mr Day and Ms Malik were each cleared of 16 misconduct charges, while fellow solicitor Ms Crowther was cleared of four, including an allegation of destroying a key document, and the firm was exonerated on 11 counts.
Leigh Day, a large firm specialising in human rights and personal injury, were said by the SRA to have spent at least £7.5 million defending the case.
The defence team, led by two Fountain Court Chambers QCs Patricia Robertson and Paul Gott, had argued the charges were brought in a "highly-charged political context", referring to a speech Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon gave to MPs at the conclusion of the public inquiry.
Sir Michael had demanded action be taken against both Leigh Day and Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), run by Phil Shiner, and that they apologise for what he called a "shameful attempt to use our legal system to impugn our armed forces".
The tribunal heard Leigh Day worked with now-disgraced solicitor Mr Shiner to represent Iraqi clients in parallel legal actions.
Mr Shiner was struck off by the SDT in February for dishonesty over his handling of war crimes allegations against the British Army.
He did not appear at his hearing and 22 misconduct charges were found proved in his absence.
Ms Robertson QC, accused the SRA of being "unprincipled" in attempting to use the Shiner judgment as a "short cut".
The firm strongly denied any financial motive and Ms Roberston told the tribunal the MoD had settled in more than 300 cases and the eight claims at the centre of the misconduct allegations represented less than 1% of the 950 brought by the firm.
The SDT said a failure relating to the firm's handling of a key document - a list of detainees linked to the radical Shia group Office of the Martyr Al Sadr (OMS) - did not amount to misconduct.
Panel chairman Simon Tinkler said that the firm did not have a duty to disclose the OMS list, said by the Al-Sweady Inquiry to be "significant", because PIL were acting for the clients, not Leigh Day.
Mr Tinkler said: "Any failure to identify the significance of that document was a human failure and not a failure of the system."
He said Ms Crowther's destruction of an English translation of the OMS list, which she had disposed of after typing out a copy, was "undoubtedly a mistake" but it was "not sufficiently serious to be professional misconduct".
And Mr Tinkler said Leigh Day were "not unreasonable" in waiting for the conclusion of the public inquiry in December 2014 before dropping the compensation claims in January 2015.
Following the seven-week hearing, Mr Tinkler said: "The tribunal has therefore found that none of the allegations made have been proved."
The panel said a formal judgment will be issued in August.
It is also thought to be one of the costliest prosecutions the SRA has pursued, expected to exceed the more than £750,000 spent in the Shiner case.
In a statement, Mr Day said: "We are pleased that the tribunal has cleared us of all the charges, and confirmed our view that we did not act improperly or dishonestly in these legal claims against the Ministry of Defence.
"For nearly 40 years I have battled on behalf of the ordinary man and woman in this country and abroad to ensure they get access to justice not least when they face the might of British multinationals or Government.
"I am very pleased that I and my colleagues can now get back to doing the work we love.
"We would like to thank our insurers and our fantastic legal team and counsel for all their hard work over the past couple of years, and during this hearing, and all those within the legal world and beyond who have given us such strong support."
An MoD spokesman said: "We have noted today's decision and are disappointed that, unlike in the case of Phil Shiner's Public Interest Lawyers, the tribunal has not agreed with the concerns we have raised.
"We will continue to both vigorously defend any opportunistic claims when we believe they are false or exaggerated, and to bring any evidence of wrongdoing to the attention of supervising bodies."
A spokesman for the SRA said: "We note the judgment handed down today. We need to wait and see the full detail and rationale behind the tribunal's decision. We will then consider the possibility of an appeal."