Features of legal regulation of the implementation of primary financial monitoring by attorney offices and attorney associations
Authors: Tovkun Igor , Slivnaya Viktoriya 
Published: February 2022

Problem setting. According to the current Law of Ukraine «On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime, Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction», attorney offices and attorney associations are also included in the system of primary financial monitoring entities. However, with the entry into force on April 28, 2020, the updated version of the Law changed the procedure and conditions for financial monitoring, assigning a broader list of responsibilities, a number of grounds for prosecution for violating the Law, increased threshold transactions and more. The analysis of such innovations raised the question of the legal certainty and indisputability of some of these provisions. Therefore, the relevance of this work is to determine how successful the provisions of the new version of this Law have been in practice and how they have affected the implementation of primary financial monitoring by attorney offices and attorney associations over the past year.
Target research. The purpose of the work is to analyze the provisions of the current Law, which have become novelties in the process of financial monitoring by attorney offices and attorney associations, to identify their problems that arise in practice and arise due to legislative inaccuracies or gaps, and to suggest solutions.
Analysis of recent research and publication. The issue of changes for attorney offices and attorney associations as subjects of primary financial monitoring has become an active focus of many lawyers. Examples of authors who pay attention to this problem are Bilousov A.I., Panchyshyn A.D., Andrusyak V.V., Gaivoronskaya V.V., Pavlunenko K.L., Nechiporuk S.I., Onishchenko V.S., Bets N.P., Drozdov O.O., Drozdova O.G. and other.
Article’s main body. One of the primary responsibilities of primary financial monitoring entities is to register. The Law does not contain more specific provisions on the terms of such duty and other conditions of registration. This issue was partially resolved by the adoption of the Resolution «Some issues of the organization of financial monitoring» of September 9, 2020. However, since it came into force only on January 1, 2021, the question arises as to the registration of those lawyers whose relations with clients were subject to financial monitoring and arose from the entry into force of the Basic Law.
In addition, the question arose as to whether those attorney offices and attorney associations whose activities were aimed exclusively at providing protection, representing clients or advising them were obliged to register with a specially authorized body. After all, among the actions that the law allows not to perform in the case of providing such services, there is no exemption from the obligation to register.
A topical issue for advocacy during the initial financial monitoring of their clients is the preservation of legal secrecy in this process. Lawyers see some uncertainty in national law in the possibility of a broad interpretation of the concept of «advising on the protection and representation of the client», as this is the basis that frees attorney offices and attorney associations from the obligations of primary financial monitoring of their clients.
A similar generality is characteristic of the definition of «suspicion» in the Law, the existence of which the subjects of primary financial monitoring are obliged to report. As a result, attorney offices and attorney associations are effectively responsible for gathering information against their clients on a large scale.
Conclusions and prospect of development. Adoption in 2019 of a new version of the Law «On Prevention and Counteraction to Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime, Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction» was aimed at a correct and useful goal. However, the legislator did not take into account all the issues that may arise in practice in the process of carrying out such activities. Some norms of the updated legislation also turned out to be imperfect. Based on this, it is necessary to define at the regulatory level all the requirements for registration of special financial monitoring entities by a special authorized body, to establish clearer rules for notification of suspicion by attorney offices and attorney associations and conditions for exemption from this obligation.