Lawyers Under the AMLA: More Duties, Not More Security

16 Sep 2026

On 1 October 2026 the revised Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) enters into force. For the first time it brings advising lawyers, trustees and notaries within its scope, and at the same time it obliges them to align their organisation with sanctions risks as well. The impetus came from outside: international standards, together with individual cases that have damaged the reputation of the Swiss financial centre.[1] The proposal draws its force from the impression that the legal profession has so far been an unregulated space. That impression is wrong, and with it the justification falls away. The reform closes no gap. It adds one more link to a control chain, a link that executes no payment.

“Anyone who wants to launder money is stopped by the bank, or not at all. What is doubled is the cost, not the insight.”

Who was already subject to the AMLA, and who is newly covered?

A lawyer who, on a professional basis, accepts or holds assets belonging to others, or assists in investing or transferring them, has been a financial intermediary within the meaning of Art. 2 para. 3 AMLA for years, with everything that entails:

identification of the contracting party
establishing the beneficial owner
clarification of the background and the origin of the funds
documentation
duty to report where there is reasonable suspicion
affiliation with a self-regulatory organisation
recurring audit

Anyone handling third-party funds was never a blank spot on the map. What is newly covered is therefore not the lawyer who moves money, but the one who advises.[2]

Which advisory activities does the Act actually capture?

Under Art. 2 para. 3^bis AMLA, advisers are natural and legal persons who, on a professional basis, assist third parties in financial transactions, including the raising of funds, in connection with the following specific legal operations:

the purchase and sale of real estate;
the formation and establishment of non-operating legal entities domiciled in Switzerland, or of legal entities domiciled abroad;
the management and administration of non-operating legal entities;
contributions to and distributions from non-operating legal entities;
the purchase and sale of legal entities, where the purchase or sale is effected through a non-operating legal entity.

To these are added, under Art. 2 para. 3^ter AMLA, those who on a professional basis provide addresses or premises as a domicile or registered office for legal entities for a period exceeding six months. And then there is the new Art. 8d AMLA: organisational measures that also prevent “breaches of coercive measures under the Embargo Act”.[3] That is more than an occasional name check. What is required is an auditable system of responsibilities, risk analysis, internal directives, training, screening, controls and documentation.

Does this additional layer of control actually improve the fight against money laundering?

The decisive objection is not the effort, but the absent return. Every one of the captured transactions needs an account. It runs through a bank, an asset manager, a payment service provider or a notary’s office with an escrow account, in other words through a financial intermediary that identifies the contracting party and the beneficial owner, clarifies the origin of the funds, monitors payment flows on an ongoing basis and reports where suspicion arises. Supervised institutions are moreover already required today to adequately capture, limit and monitor legal and reputational risks[4], and FINMA treats sanctions risks as a principal non-financial risk in its own right.[5] The advising lawyer examines the same transaction a second time, with less data and without a payment system. He sees the mandate, not the flow of funds.

How little that second look carries is shown precisely by sanctions screening. On its own search engine, SECO states that it displays “only results relating to directly sanctioned individuals, companies and organisations” and provides “no information on any ownership or control relationships”.[6] Those are exactly the relationships now to be assessed by someone who has neither account data nor transaction monitoring: under SECO’s interpretative guidance, ownership applies from 50 per cent directly or indirectly, while control may follow from a single one of eight criteria. A hit is the start of the assessment, not its result.

What does the second control cost: independence and professional secrecy?

This second control is not free, and it is not paid for in francs. Lawyers practise their profession “independently, in their own name and on their own responsibility” (Art. 12 let. b Lawyers Act, BGFA) and are bound by professional secrecy “without limitation in time and towards everyone” (Art. 13 para. 1 BGFA). The legislator does see the conflict: activity in judicial, criminal, administrative and arbitral proceedings remains excluded (Art. 2 para. 4 let. f AMLA), and a person acting as a lawyer is subject to the reporting duty only where he executes a financial transaction and the information is not protected under Art. 321 of the Criminal Code (Art. 9 para. 2 AMLA). Alongside this now stands the advisers’ own reporting duty (Art. 9 para. 1^ter AMLA).

How the two provisions interact in an individual mandate is for the firm itself to assess, and on an activity-related rather than a profession-related basis: the same firm is covered in one mandate and not in the next. No one relieves it of that burden. Responsibility for the implementation, monitoring and enforcement of the sanctions ordinances remains with SECO; it describes its own interpretative guidance as legally non-binding.[7] Organisational prevention is supervised by the AMLA supervisory authorities and the self-regulatory organisations. The competences exist side by side; the legal classification remains with the party subject to the Act. What results is delimitation work, liability risk and a further encroachment on a professional secrecy that protects not the lawyer, but the client.

What must those affected do by 1 October 2026?

The objective is right; the instrument misses. Anyone who genuinely wants to improve the fight against money laundering strengthens supervision where the money flows, instead of extending the chain by a link that executes no payment. For those affected, this criticism changes nothing for now: by 1 October they need a scope and gap analysis, a stand-alone sanctions risk analysis that can be merged with the existing money laundering analysis, internal directives with escalation paths, function-specific training, screening governance, effectiveness controls and documentation. On the same day, the Swiss transparency register also goes live under the new Federal Act on the Transparency of Legal Entities (TJPG, SR 955.3).

Conclusion: More duties, not more security

A directive without demonstrable implementation protects no one. And an additional duty that sees nothing new creates no additional security.

How LINDEMANNLAW supports you

Money laundering and sanctions law are among the flagship practices of LINDEMANNLAW. We support law firms, notaries, trustees, family offices and financial intermediaries with scope and gap analyses, with the preparation of a tailored risk analysis for money laundering and sanctions, with drafting internal directives, with designing training and effectiveness controls, with assessing complex ownership and control structures, and with reporting, licensing and enforcement matters before SECO and the self-regulatory organisation.

There is little time left before 1 October 2026. Arrange a confidential initial consultation with Dr. iur. Alexander Schiemenz, and together we will examine whether, and with which activities, you fall within the scope, and what has to be in place by the deadline.

The original opinion piece in “Finanz und Wirtschaft” is available here: Sauberer wird der Finanzplatz nicht, wenn man die gleiche Frage fünfmal stellt

Disclaimer: This publication contains general information only and does not constitute legal advice. The assessment always depends on the circumstances of the individual case. For advice on your specific situation, please contact us directly.