Some 70 firms set to lose their dual authorisation to give combined legal and financial advice later this year may have been granted a reprieve.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority had told the affected firms that when they became alternative business structures they would lose their authorised professional firms (APF) status allowing them to provide both legal and financial advice. However, the SRA will now seek views on a ‘complete regulatory regime’ for the APF sector.

An SRA spokesperson said: ‘We are looking at a very open consultation with different options available for comment.’ The deadline for ABS conversion, originally October 2012, is now March 2013 at the earliest.

John Eaton, a partner at dual-regulated Yorkshire firm Lupton Fawcett, welcomed the move: ‘I find it quite astonishing - and outrageous - that the SRA could even have considered a regulatory regime that was so unfair and discriminatory. Rather than implementing the SRA’s claimed intention of improving consumer service and extending choice, this would have had the very opposite effect of discouraging multi-disciplinary practices and stopping firms giving holistic advice.’

Ian Muirhead, director of SIFA, the representative body for law firms regulated by the SRA and Financial Services Authority, said: ‘We told the SRA that withdrawing APF status would oblige firms to stop their FSA-regulated activities, because solicitors would no longer be able to conduct the regulated financial services activity that is a part of their legal work. This has left the firms in limbo.’