It’s rare for a regulator to pass up the opportunity to regulate, but that’s what the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has just done. Unusual as it is, the real question is — was this their decision to make?
The SRA has decided that it will no longer authorise solicitors to act as insolvency practitioners (IPs), despite acknowledging the substantial strength of feeling against its proposals. Solicitor IPs now face the administrative headache of dual regulation — by the SRA as solicitors and another authority as IPs — and “double jeopardy” being accountable to two separate regulators for the same matter.
The SRA argues that its non-prescriptive approach to regulation is inconsistent with the detailed oversight required to regulate solicitor IPs and that it lacks the