Legal information

Limitation of professional liability

Shareholders, directors, lawyers, employees and/or trainees are not personally bound by the company's commitments. The company must insure itself at all times for each shareholder, director, lawyer, employee and/or trainee and the professional liability insurance subscribed must be in reasonable proportion to the nature of the practice of the insured lawyer, employees and/or trainees. The professional liability of the company, as well as its shareholders, its directors, its lawyers, its employees and/or trainees, shall, in accordance with the provisions of the Codex Deontology for Lawyers and the own regulations of the competent Bar Association with respect to clients, be limited to the amount for which the company, its shareholders, its directors, its lawyers, its employees and/or trainees are insured per claim within the framework of its professional liability and shall be paid out, which amount may never be lower than the guarantee provided by the professional liability insurance organised by the competent Bar Association collectively. Neither the company nor its shareholders, directors, lawyers, employees and/or trainees can be held liable for the excess.

Duty to identify and money-laundering legislation

In application of a European directive adopted at the end of 2001, the Belgian statute on the prevention of use of the financial system for laundering money and financing terrorism, the duty to identify and to report unusual transactions has been extended to the legal profession since February 2004.
Since that time lawyers are, in certain circumstances, legally required to identify their clients and to retain proof of their clients' identity. This obligation applies equally to clients who are private persons, legal entities and their representatives.

When lawyers exercise certain activities on behalf of their clients, they fall within the scope of the money-laundering law (Law of 11 January 1993 for the prevention of the use of the financial system to launder money and finance terrorism, abbreviated to the ‘money-laundering law’). This legislation is intended to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and it obliges lawyers to follow an acceptance procedure. The failure to comply with this can lead to disciplinary penalties and administrative fines.

To begin with, we need to enquire as to the nature of the assignment with which you wish to entrust us, so that we can determine whether the money-laundering law applies.

If the assignment involves one of the following tasks identified by the legislator as ‘susceptible to money laundering’, we will need to investigate your identity:

  • Acting in your name or on your behalf in financial transactions or real estate transactions.
  • Supporting you in preparing or executing one of the following transactions:
  1. The purchase or sale of real estate or businesses;
  2. The management of money, securities or other assets;
  3. The opening or management of bank, savings or securities accounts;
  4. The organisation of contributions necessary for the foundation, operation or management of companies;
  5. The foundation, operation or management of companies, trusts, collateral or similar legal constructions.

The money-laundering law does not apply to advice on determining your legal position, the conducting, preparation and even the avoidance of court cases.

If the assignment with which you wish to entrust to us falls within the scope of money-laundering law, we are obliged to identify our clients and demand, verify and retain several documents in support of that identity: a copy of your identity card and, if a company is involved, an excerpt from the Crossroad Bank for Enterprises. We may also have to ask you about the origin of funds or assets.

This information and obligation to be vigilant does not only extend to our clients - whether natural or legal persons - themselves, but likewise to their agents, such as the directors of companies. We also need to check who the ultimate beneficiaries are of clients who are legal persons. This means that we need to find out about the natural persons who are assumed to exercise control over the company.

The law prohibits us from entering into a business relationship with you and obliges us to terminate our preliminary intervention if we do not receive the requested information within two weeks of the initial request to do so.

Even during the course of our client relationship, we are subject to a duty of vigilance and must obtain additional information if necessary. If the information needs to be adapted in the course of our business relationship, we ask you to provide us with this information spontaneously.

If, in the course of our work, we discover facts which we know or suspect to be related to money laundering or terrorist financing, we are obliged to inform the competent Head of the Bar Association, except when our work is in the context of determining the client's legal position or defending or representing the client in legal proceedings. The President of the Bar then decides whether or not to report the information received to the Financial Information Processing Unit.

This duty to inform does not relieve us of compliance with professional secrecy, which is a basic feature of the relationship between the client and his lawyer.

General Terms and Conditions

A copy of our General Terms and Conditions can be requested at contact@dvp-law.com