Rule 68 Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners

Rule 68 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners (RPC) 2023 is about Internal risk assessment guidelines. It is under Part III (Risk Based Approach and Client Due Diligence) of Chapter 2 (Guidelines and Rules on Anti-money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism for Legal Practitioners) of the Rules. It provides as follows:

(1) A legal practitioner or firm shall develop Internal Risk Assessment Guidelines (RAG) which shall be used as the basis for assessing risks.

(2) In developing an internal RAG, the following factors on risk assessment should be considered—
(a) the responsibilities, status, and role of the legal practitioner or firm ;
(b) resources that can be allocated to implementation and management of an appropriately developed RAG and the resources available to the legal practitioner or firm, in other words, the RAG of a legal practitioner or firm is
expected to be proportionate to the scope and nature of the legal practitioner or firm’s practice and clients ;

(c) risk variables specific to a particular client or type of work ; and
(d) whether the client and proposed work would be unusual, risky, or suspicious for the legal practitioner or law firm, and this factor shall always be considered in the context of the legal practitioner’s practice, as well as the legal profession, and ethical obligations in Nigeria.

(3) Sole practitioners may rely on publicly available records and information supplied by a client for risk assessment.

(4) The existence of a RAG in any law firm or by any legal practitioner in his or her practice, and the demonstration of compliance with same in any given case shall be prima facie proof of compliance, except the contrary is shown.