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Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has voted in favour of a new conduct framework, which includes fining badly behaved partners and establishing a conduct committee.

The partner vote on the new conduct framework closed on Monday, a person with knowledge of the firm's internal workings said. The person added that, as per the firm's membership agreement, the vote needed to pass a 75% threshold to succeed.

The new protocol comprises a fine for bad behaviour that could see partners hit with a 20% profit share cut for 12 months, if they fall subject to an internal investigation that results in a final warning about their behaviour.

The Magic Circle firm drew up plans in October to ring in the new framework. Revealed by Law.com's U.K. arm Legal Week, the plans included establishing a conduct committee – a subcommittee of the overall leadership board, the partnership council – to oversee the investigations process and to decide on outcomes.

The Magic Circle firm intensified its focus on its conduct framework following the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearing into ex-partner Ryan Beckwith, who in October received a £35,000 fine plus costs of £200,000 for allegedly engaging in non-consensual sexual activity with an intoxicated junior colleague.

In November, Legal Week revealed that Freshfields was investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for failing to report the Beckwith incident to the regulator as per its duty.

Freshfields reinstated senior partner Edward Braham's statement to Legal Week following the original story, which is as follows: "We are committed to improving behaviour and inclusiveness. For more than a year we have been running a global behaviours programme to drive culture change, which includes reviewing and adjusting our HR processes, governance and systems across the firm.

"We want to ensure that positive behaviour is consistently valued and that inappropriate behaviour is called out and acted upon. The plans for a conduct committee and protocol are part of this ongoing programme across the firm."

A spokesperson at the firm did not comment further.