In the fight against money laundering, lawyers, tax advisors, accountants, and notaries have been gatekeepers for almost thirty years. These occupational groups are often the first professional party to encounter a case of (attempted) money laundering, which makes them excellent candidates in the fight against the phenomenon. The collaboration between these groups and the government is essential but experienced by these professional groups as forced compliance instead of a partnership. Karin van Wingerde, Professor of Corporate Crime and Governance at Erasmus School of Law, and Claire Hofman, Assistant Professor of Criminal Law and Tax Law at Erasmus School of Law, wrote the article ‘Gatekeepers tell their stories. Dilemmas of accountants, lawyers, tax specialists and notaries in their role as gatekeepers’ about this subject.
In the publication of Van Wingerde and Hofman, the gatekeeper role of accountants, lawyers, tax specialists and notaries is central. They are responsible for preventing the misuse of the financial system and legal constructions for money laundering and the financing of terrorism through monitoring transactions, reporting unusual transactions, and denying or stopping their services.
Although cooperation between public and private actors is indispensable for the fight against money laundering, the research shows that the practice is refractory, and gatekeepers struggle with the implementation.
Van Wingerde and Hofman: “One of the biggest challenges for the coming years will be strengthening the collaboration between public and private actors in the fight against money laundering. To succeed, the collaboration should be less top-down.” According to the researchers, the focus should be more on the societal damage that money laundering causes and the underlying problems of it. From that focus, the dialogue should commence because that will stimulate the draw-up of mutual goals, according to the researchers. Those mutual goals can be relied on in the future.
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The entire publication ‘Gatekeepers tell their stories. Dilemmas of accountants, lawyers, tax specialists and notaries in their role as gatekeeper’ is part of the series Politiekunde of the Research Programme Politie en Wetenschap. Click here for the entire publication (in Dutch).