Court of Justice reaffirms the unique role of lawyers with judgment!
In its judgment of 29 July, the Court of Justice reaffirmed the importance of confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients.
Only lawyers subject to the ethical supervision of the Bar Associations, which must guarantee their independence, are exempted from the obligation to report tax advice they provide to their clients for transactions they wish to perform in other Member States.
What does this mean?
- Clients cannot be forced to report the existence and content of lawyers' advice to the authorities.
- According to the Court of Justice, reports may not be complete either. There is no active obligation to search for missing elements.
- The Court of Justice also provides more clarity on when a reporting obligation actually starts and specifies that lawyers can already communicate their right not to report to their client during the first meeting, before the reporting obligation arises.
In practice
In practice, all this means a great deal of clarification for those who need tax advice for actions they are considering taking abroad. Mr. Paul Verhaeghe was one of the parties to the proceedings who went to the Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice to enforce these improvements.
It is now up to the Constitutional Court and the Belgian authorities to adapt the Belgian rules to this judgment.
Want to see the ruling?
Click here to continue.
Would you like to view Paul Verhaeghe's vision statement?
You can do this here.