ARE LAWYERS COVERED BY MONEY LAUNDERING LEGISLATION?
The law, which regulates the Prevention and Control System of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (Act No. 17.835), does not establish that lawyers, who, in the context of their private practice, find out about suspicious transactions have the duty to report this information. Notwithstanding the foregoing, section 2 of the referred Act sets forth that natural persons or legal entities who, on the behalf of third persons, perform financial transactions or run businesses on a regular basis (provided the businesses are not a consortium or an economic group) will have the obligation to inform about: • Transactions that, according to general commercial practice of the respective activity, can be considered unusual; • Transactions that arise without clear economic or legal justification; • Transactions with an unusual or unjustified complexity; • Financial transactions involving assets for which there are suspicions of illegality concerning their origins. Therefore, if a lawyer makes on
