A group of ex-Cobbetts lawyers – including former managing partner Nick Carr and senior partner Stephen Benson – have been referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) in connection with the 2013 collapse of the Manchester firm.

Eight individuals, the majority of who joined DWF in its pre-pack acquisition of Cobbetts in February 2013, have been referred to the SDT by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

Benson is now client strategy partner at DWF and sits on the firm's client development executive board, while Carr was a partner at DWF until February 2016, when he became a consultant.

The other six referred to the SDT include two other former Cobbetts partners now at DWF – Birmingham corporate head Mark Gibson and Manchester banking partner Paul Brown.

According to the SRA, the SDT has decided that the eight have a case to answer. The charges relate to their roles in the last days of Cobbetts between June 2012 and its move into administration in February 2013.

Carr and Benson, for example, are charged with being "responsible individually or collectively for providing misleading information or failing to provide material information" to the appropriate parties.

The allegations are as yet unproven, but the SRA website alleges they "exhibited manifest incompetence and acted in breach" of SRA principles, and that they allowed members drawings to exceed profits and failed to have a proper contingency plan in place.

For both Carr and Benson, the SRA decision states that: "He was responsible individually and/or collectively for failing to run the business or carry out his respective role in the business effectively and in accordance with proper governance and sound financial and risk management principles."

The group, which is set to face a hearing before the SDT on the allegations, also includes Richard Webb, Jeremy Green, Stephen Thornton and former Cobbetts finance director James Boyd.

Webb joined DWF as a partner before moving to TLT in Manchester, where he is now a consultant. Green is a consultant at Gateley Plc in the firm's Leeds office. Boyd is now CEO of Manchester financial services firm Stanton Fisher, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Although Thornton and Boyd are non-lawyers, as former employees of a law firm regulated by the SRA they are still subject to any disciplinary action that may be brought.

A spokesperson for the former Cobbetts partners said: "The SRA allegations, coming some four years after Cobbetts' sale, are misconceived and are fully, and strenuously, denied. The evidence demonstrates that we acted appropriately and with propriety throughout."

Cobbetts' collapse into administration in February 2013 saw 419 employees and partners move to DWF in a pre-pack deal. The acquisition came just 12 months after DWF and Cobbetts had held merger talks.

In a statement, DWF said: "The individuals concerned now at DWF have our full support. Given the allegations relate to a time when they were at Cobbetts, it is not a matter for DWF to comment on."