The OECD has joined forces with the International Bar Association (IBA) to form a task force to develop professional conduct standards and practice guidance for lawyers involved in establishing and advising on international commercial structures and recommended actions for governments.
The OECD-IBA Task Force on The Role of Lawyers and International Commercial Structures is expected to be a key component in the global fight against corruption. It will work to develop appropriate guidance with respect to forming international commercial structures, while ensuring that confidence in both the lawyers’ role and the core principles of the legal profession are preserved.
According to the OECD, in completing legal transactions for their clients, lawyers may knowingly or unwittingly assist clients in asset concealment or money laundering. International standards, such as the Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), already provide a framework for conducting due diligence on customers and identifying the beneficial owner. However, countries’ implementation of these standards has been variable. OECD Director for Legal Affairs Nicola Bonucci says, "Lawyers play a key role in our societies and the best way to ensure that they can continue to fulfil such a role is to work together on the design of good professional standards which can be used by all lawyers irrespective of their countries of origin or operation. Mere formal respect of the law is a necessary but not always sufficient condition and experts from the OECD and from the IBA will confront their point of view and work together in order to ensure that these professional standards meet the expectations of the various stakeholders. This pioneering work will not substitute or conflict with existing international and national requirements and will complement other ongoing OECD work on the role of tax intermediaries."
And IBA President David W. Rivkin commented, "It is undeniable that lawyers must play a central role in complex offshore financial transactions. To ensure that they do not unwittingly facilitate economic crime, it is imperative that lawyers ask the right questions of their clients, vet them sufficiently, understand who are to be the ultimate beneficiaries of their client’s actions, and have an understanding of sovereign laws. In practice, inevitably complications arise. For example, what are a law firm’s obligations when conflicting sovereign laws apply in cross-border transactions? Recent events have shown that existing international and professional standards may not provide sufficiently clear guidance to lawyers who handle such transactions. Recent actions also present the danger that in their anti-corruption activities, governments may ignore the need for lawyers to advise their clients in confidence. For this reason, the IBA has partnered with the foremost inter-governmental organisation analysing and promoting economic policies, the OECD, to create appropriate standards while, at the same time, respect the fundamental rules applicable to the profession that are a key element of the rule of law. Each organisation will bring its relevant expertise to the project."
