The authorities believe the plan will help in faster recognition of dubious transactions involving shell companies and money laundering. The plan is to implement recent recommendations of the FATF which require lawyers, notaries, other independent legal professionals and accountants to report suspicious transactions, and maintain a record of transactions undertaken for clients, said the first source. "If lawyers are brought under the money laundering law, it will breach the trust between client and attorney and impact privilege communications," said senior lawyer Hiten Venegaonkar. Other countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia have anti-money laundering requirements for law firms and lawyers, said K.V. India is currently compliant with FATF regulations but even within the compliant category, FATF assigns scores to various countries based on strength of regulations and implementation of these.

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Persons: Hiten Venegaonkar, Venegaonkar, K.V, Karthik, Nikunj Ohri, Kim Coghill Organizations: Reuters, Money, Bar, Deloitte Touche, Thomson Locations: DELHI, New Delhi, United Kingdom, Australia, India