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Due diligence / discretion

On 1 January 2001 the Professional Due Diligence for Financial Transactions Act came into force in the Principality of Liechtenstein.

The act is designed to combat money laundering and organised crime. The new Professional Due Diligence for Financial Transactions Act has not in any way changed statutorily-anchored bank secrecy or professional secrecy for trustees.

All financial intermediaries – in particular trustees, lawyers and banks – are inter alia obliged when entering into a business relationship:

to identify the contracting party,
to determine the economic beneficiary of the introduced assets,
to draw up a profile of the business relationship, i.e. to clarify and document the economic background and the origin of the assets as well as the use to which they are put, and to monitor the correspondence of the performed transactions with this profile on an ongoing basis.

The financial intermediary is essentially obliged to make a copy of the ID document of the contracting party or of the economic beneficiary (passport, ID card), and must keep this in a separate secure location together with the aforementioned due diligence documentation.

Should suspicions arise, these must be reported to the specially established authority, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

In other respects, statutory secrecy obligations may only be broken within the framework of a criminal lawsuit or on the basis of a corresponding request for judicial assistance. The Principality of Liechtenstein essentially rejects any requests for judicial assistance concerning fiscal matters (except with respect to certain cases vis-à-vis the USA).

Euromanagement & Trust Company Establishment
FL-9490 Vaduz, Meierhofstrasse 2, PO Box 135, Liechtenstein
Tel. +423 236 11 00, Fax +423 236 11 01
office@euromanagement.li - www.euromanagement.li

© 2006 Euromanagement & Trust Company Establishment,
all rights reserved.