Context

On 27 May 2019, the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST) of the European Commission (EC) published a tender notice on the “Development and Organisation of Training for Lawyers on Anti-money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing (AML-CTF) Rules at EU Level”. This tender was awarded to a consortium composed of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) and the European Lawyers Foundation (ELF)  with an outstanding score of 92 out of 100 points.

Objectives

The general objective of the project was training in, raising awareness of and promotion of the key principles and concepts of the EU AML-CTF rules among lawyers. The project analysed, assessed and supported lawyers’ needs by increasing their awareness of their role and obligations in the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism under the Directives.

The project activities aimed at helping lawyers understand how they can best: 

• Access and understand relevant AML/CTF obligations; reflect on the ways lawyers and law firms may be misused in the context of money laundering and terrorist financing. 
• Reflect on practices lawyers and law firms should adopt in their particular jurisdiction and in accordance with the relevant bar rules, to ensure the highest ethical standards of the profession are maintained.
• Identify the problems that may arise in the interpretation of specific provisions in the light of hypothetical and actual cases and in view, in particular, of the continuity of their business relationships with their clients and other considerations; 

Project activities

The project was divided into three main sets of activities:

1. Development of a strategy for training lawyers on their obligations under AML/CTF Directives: this was composed of sub-activities such as the drafting of a Training Need Assessment and the drafting of an overall strategy, which included also the relevant AML/CTF context (Including legislation and case-law). 
2. Production of an EU-level training programme (TP): the TP was complemented by a manual for trainers (which will allow trainers to organise successful training for lawyers on AML/CTF) and a user’s manual (which contained relevant information for lawyers).
3. Training activities: two kind of activities took place:
   • Training for trainers: a group of 15 trainers coming from different EU jurisdictions was trained at an event in Brussels. The objective was to give these trainers the opportunity to re-use the training modules presented to them and adapt them to their own training activities and national specificities.
   • Regional cross-border training activities: three regional seminars were organised in three different EU Member States to train lawyers on AML/CTF on the basis of the TP. Lawyers from different Member States were selected and grouped into one of the 3 training seminars. Participants had their travel and accommodation costs reimbursed by the project. In addition to geographical representation, the project focused on ensuring the participation of lawyers in terms of gender balance and representation of big, medium and small law firms and self-employed lawyers. 

All these activities were supported by comprehensive dissemination over the duration of the project. Information about the project was provided through various communication tools such as a dedicated website (www.AML4lawyers.eu), the use of social media (mainly the CCBE and ELF’s LinkedIn and Twitter accounts) and the CCBE’s e-newsletter CCBE-info. National Bars and Law Societies were kept informed through the information presented to them regularly at CCBE Standing Committees and Plenary Sessions.