If lawyers of Schuermans advocaten bv assist you in the context of financial or real estate transactions, we must comply with specific legal and professional rules aimed at preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.
Before we can take you on as a client, we must then first verify your identity and that of your possible agents and ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs). We must also assess your characteristics and the purpose and nature of the assignment you entrust to us. These vigilance obligations also apply during the performance of our assignment, and any other assignments you may still entrust to us. The cost of these administrative obligations is included in our fees.
To allow us to fulfil these obligations, you must immediately provide us with the necessary information when we ask you to do so. If any changes occur that may affect your status, you will provide this information immediately of your own accord. We process and store the information you communicate to us for a period of 10 years from the end of our business relationship or the last assignment you entrusted to us. For more information on the data protection aspects of our obligations under money laundering prevention regulations, please refer to our privacy and cookie statement.
If you fail to provide us with the necessary information, we will not be able to take you on as a client and/or we will be forced to terminate our services for you immediately. We will not be liable for any resulting damages. Furthermore, the termination of our services does not affect the services already performed and billable.
If, in carrying out our assignment, we discover facts that we know or suspect to be related to money laundering or terrorist financing, we must immediately report this to the Head of our Bar Association, except when we are providing you with legal advice or defending or representing you in connection with a lawsuit. The Head of our Bar Association will then decide whether to transfer our report to the Financial Information Processing Unit. In the event of a report, we are also required to immediately terminate our services for you, without being allowed to inform you of the reason. This is prohibited by law. Furthermore, you cannot hold us liable for reports that we submit to the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit in good faith.
These obligations obviously do not affect the professional secrecy that continues to characterise the relationship between the client and his lawyer.