On 03/11/2023 on the pages of Kommersant founder of L&P commented on the recently proposed amendments to the Federal Law “On Prevention of Legalization (Laundering) of Income Obtained by Illegal Means and Terrorism Financing”. According to the legislators, the purpose of the amendments is to eradicate of an illicit scheme practiced by single notaries acting in bad faith – application of notarial execution orders to contracts for mandatory extrajudicial recovery of significant amounts for the purposes of legalization of funds obtained by illegal means, as well as at deeper involvement of the notaries into the anti-money laundering activities. However, many financial markets operators and prominent lawyers are rather skeptical of the new initiative and believe that the state attempts to burden the notaries with additional formal functions. Alexander Linnikov is not an exception. In his interview to Kommersant he says: “Such an approach threatens to discredit the institution of attorney-client privilege and undermine the faith in objectivity and independence of the notary. Notaries and attorneys must, above all, safeguard the trust of their clients, not carry out functions of law enforcement agencies and compliance services of banks”.
