From 1 July 2026, new AML/CTF laws will require your law firm to verify your identity and conduct due diligence before providing certain services. These checks apply to all clients—new and existing—and may include confirming your identity, ownership of entities, source of funds, and whether you’re a politically exposed person.

Under new Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) legislation, we will be legally required to complete identity verification and customer due diligence checks before providing certain services, including:

• Buying, selling or transferring real estate, including certain long term leases and land use entitlements,

• Buying and selling shares or units in a unit trust,

• Holding money in trust,

• Equity or debt finance transactions including loans and capital raising,

• Creation or restructuring of companies, trusts, partnerships and other legal arrangements,

• Acting as a director, trustee or power of attorney, nominee shareholder for someone.

These requirements apply to all law practices and are similar to the identification checks carried out by banks and other financial institutions. We will also need to ask you to tell us whether you are a politically exposed person (PEP), or a family member or close associate of a PEP, and provide information about any company, trust or other entity involved in the matter, including its beneficial owners and controllers.

We may also need to ask you to provide us with information about your source of funds and source of wealth and ask for updated information during the course of your matter.

Importantly, these obligations apply to both new and existing clients. Even if you have been a client of our firm for many years, we may still be required to complete identity verification under the new legislation.

To prepare for these changes, we will begin rolling out identity verification requests to clients for who we are or are soon likely to provide any of the above services using InfoTrack, our secure digital verification platform.

As the new legislation prevents us from undertaking certain services until verification is complete, we encourage you to respond promptly. This will help avoid delays to time-sensitive matters that may be subject to strict deadlines.

You can find more information on the AUSTRAC website: https://www.austrac.gov.au/general-public