Lawyer and Legal Advisor

Recognizing unusual transactions

As a lawyer or legal adviser, you are familiar with the practices within your line of business. Whether a transaction is considered unusual depends largely on your professional judgment. Your judgment is consistent with what is considered unusual within your profession. In addition to your judgment, there are situations that are unusual by nature and should therefore be reported.

If a situation arises as described in the examples below (not exhaustive), this is a reason to further examine whether the transaction could be related to money laundering, terrorist financing, and/or associated predicate offenses. It is not necessary to determine with certainty that the above-mentioned crimes have been committed. You merely need to have an assumption that the transaction can be related to one of these crimes.
If you believe that the transaction could be related to money laundering, terrorist financing, and/or associated predicate offenses, you are required to report this under the subjective indicator.

Red flags – attorney and legal adviser

• The service provider manages funds and has reasons to doubt the origin of the funds or the title under which funds are made available to the client
• The client or the intermediary is not willing, or only after long and frequent insistence, to provide information about the origin or title of the funds
• A client requests to perform several transactions, without the name of the client being known in any of these transactions
• A client wants to use the third-party account other than for which it is intended (without any legal basis). The client has deposited an amount in the trust account and requests that this be refunded to one or more other account (s), whether or not in the name of the client, or to repay the amount deposited by means of a check
• A client requests mediation in a particular transaction for which a contract has not been submitted or for which the underlying reason is unknown

Typologies: