Here are some questions which puzzle me. Why has money laundering, of all crimes, become the single crime where it is enacted everywhere in Europe that lawyers must breach their code of conduct and report on suspicions of criminal activity?

Is money laundering worse than crimes where people die or are violated? Does it have a popular echo, so that the tabloids and political parties are crying out for justice to be done?

And why has the cumbersome procedure set down by EU law of reporting suspicions fallen on money laundering alone, and not on the more serious crimes - such as terrorism or people and drug trafficking - which give rise to money laundering? (I am certainly not saying I want the scheme extended.)

A Martian would consider this bizarre, when the Martian came around to look at the important matter of money laundering.

Money laundering is neither the worst crime, nor does it have the rage of the people to justify it. I think the institutions just got lucky. After 9/11, when so many countries introduced much stricter security measures, the reporting duty was slipped into the law because it had a connection to benefits accruing to terrorism.

And it has been kept there ever since precisely because there is no popular interest.

There are important developments to announce in this vacuum-packed world. First, the long-awaited Deloitte report into the working of the EU money laundering legislation, and in particular its impact on lawyers, has been published.

It shows how the UK’s own gold-plating of the money laundering legislation has distorted the reporting process. Statistics are given for the reports provided by lawyers on suspicious transactions in the various Member States.

Here are some sample figures for 2009: Germany – 16; France – 2; Italy – 3; Spain – 32. I have taken large countries comparable to the UK in size, but I could go on: Belgium – 3; Netherlands – 22; Austria – 6; and so on.

Indeed, all the countries have lawyer reporting around that range, with one exception. Can you guess how many lawyer reports were made in the UK over a similar period? 4,761. And that is a reduction on the figure from a few years ago.

Is this because UK lawyers are inherently more suspicious than their continental counterparts? Or because there is more money laundering in the UK? I don’t think so.

The report comes up with reasons to justify it, arising out gold-plating: the high penalties foreseen by the UK legislation in case of non reporting; a committed enforcement policy from the authorities; the very broad definition of criminal activity as predicate offence ('all-crimes' approach), which also includes self-laundering and no de minimis rule, and a certain ambiguity in the interpretation of UK law with respect to the need to report in the context of litigation, resulting in a high prevalence of precautionary reporting.

Additionally, notaries in several countries often submit the highest number of reports, and the fact that solicitors provide services which in other countries are provided by notaries may be another factor.

(This argument rather collapses when you read that the highest number of reports by notaries – from the Netherlands – stood at only 389.)

There are no figures on the most interesting question: does such a gigantic reporting duty lead to any more convictions, either in the UK compared to other Member States, or indeed, taking the EU as a whole, compared to the position before the reporting obligation was introduced?

And will the authorities draw the lessons from the reporting figures? - the huge reporting structure has been introduced so that there can be 16 reports in Germany (which has 150,000 lawyers in all) and 32 in Spain (160,000 lawyers).

Nothing abashed, the work on money laundering continues at EU level. Following a consultation meeting organised by the European Commission earlier this month, it is now clear that the Deloitte report will form only part of the review process of the legislation.

The Commission will draft its own report before the end of 2011, including a chapter on the impact on the legal profession as required by Article 42 of the 2005 Directive, and scheduled for adoption in early 2012.

There will also be a Commission consultation before the end of 2011 (expected in November or December 2011). After that, the Commission has indicated that there will be new legislation - a 4th Directive - before the end of 2012.

This new Directive will include the outcome of the Financial Action Task Force’s current review of its standards, which are expected to be approved in autumn 2011.

I sometimes look at the bankers, whose antics have ruined whole countries, and wonder at their magic in evading more serious regulation across the board.

Jonathan Goldsmith is the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), which represents around a million European lawyers through its member bars and law societies

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