The National Bar Council (CNB) has unanimously adopted new draft texts reorganizing the control of compliance, by lawyers, with their obligations in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (LBC-FT).

This decision is a continuation of of the report voted unanimously on 5 April 2024. It provides for the creation of a national commission for shared control, endowed with legal personality. The mission of this body will be to organize and implement the control compliance with AML/CFT obligations by all lawyers.

According to the CNB, this new architecture normative meets international standards. It aims, in particular, to prevent the risks of “among themselves” highlighted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its May 2022 evaluation report. The objective is clear: to guarantee a control that is both effective, independent and homogeneous over the entire territory, while maintaining the self-regulation of the profession and secrecy professional.

The system is based on two pillars structuring agents.

The first concerns the establishment of a mandatory evaluation diagnosis (DEO). This national tool, entirely dematerialized, will constitute a first level of mandatory control of AML/CFT obligations. Accessible to all lawyers via a secure platform, the DEO will apply to all exercise structures, with terms and conditions adapted according to the status: individual exercise, collaboration or structure collective.

Concretely, the diagnosis is structured around the key themes of AMBC-FT. It integrates the approach by risks, customer identification, internal procedures and management financial flows. It will also allow automated scoring of risks and statistical exploitation of the data collected. At this point, the development of the platform is more than 70% complete, with implementation service scheduled by the end of the first quarter of 2026.

The second pillar is about creation. of a national joint control commission. This would be composed of nine practising lawyers, appointed equally by the president of the CNB, the President of the Paris Bar Association and the President of the Conference of Bâtonniers. Son operation would be financed by the contributions of the Orders.

This commission will ensure the implementation of DEO layout, analysis and processing of responses, as well as their transmission to the councils of the order. The latter remain, in fact, alone competent to decide on the follow-up to be given, in particular the triggering of controls.

As part of on-the-spot checks and on documents, decided by the councils of the order, the national commission will designate controllers. The latter, practising lawyers or honoraries, will be appointed for renewable terms of three years. Their status will ensure independence, competence, impartiality and mandatory training.

Finally, the project includes an obligation annual reporting. The councils of the order must transmit to the president from the CNB an LBC-FT activity report. This measure aims to ensure the centralization of data at the national level and to meet the requirements of competent authorities, both national and international.

The CNB has also mandated its group of work, in collaboration with the Office, to initiate proceedings with the Department of Justice. The aim is to obtain the rapid publication of texts, so that the national mutual control commission can become fully operational as early as 2026.