Germany’s Federal Chamber of Notaries has rejected the allegations put forth by Berlin Justice Senator Dirk Behrendt about notaries. The authority called his remarks “uninformed” and even “deliberately” misleading when he said that notaries are not working correctly by not reporting money laundering cases.
Legally, notaries in Germany now must report suspected ML cases to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). However, until 2020, lawmakers had upheld the pact of confidentiality between notaries and their clients. As a result, number of suspicious activity reports was low (in double-digits in 2019). The law was amended on October 1, 2020, after which more than 1,600 reports were reported during October-December 2020 alone. The number is expected to rise to 6,000 in 2021. This signifies the contribution of notaries to the reporting of suspected ML cases from the non-financial sector.
However, the Federal Chamber of Notaries has made it clear that as supervisory authorities, it is the duty of the regional courts to monitor compliance of notaries with reporting obligations. A June 2021 amendment in law has limited the reporting obligation of the supervisory authorities to what notaries can report. Thus, supervisory authorities can no longer report cases that the concerned notaries cannot legally report to the FIU due to a violation of the constitutionally protected notary-client confidentiality.
Source: Bundesnotarkammer (Federal Chamber of Notaries), Germany