Lawyers and civil-law notaries have a legal duty of confidentiality. For lawyers, this duty of confidentiality is laid down in the Dutch Counsel Act (Advocatenwet), and for civil-law notaries in the Dutch Civil-Law Notaries Act (Wet op het notarisambt). The Wwft states that lawyers and civil-law notaries are not bound by their duty of confidentiality when making a report of an unusual transaction under the Wwft, and in that context are obliged to provide (additional) information to the Financial Intelligence Unit – the Netherlands and the Financial Supervision Office (Bureau Financieel Toezicht (BFT)). Our duty of confidentiality is therefore crossed by the Wwft duty to report.

The duty to report does not apply during the exploratory talk. Clients may at all times speak freely with a lawyer or civil-law notary in order to determine the legal position, as long as no substantive services (advice) are rendered at that time.