A Swiss member based in Geneva, Shahram has a long and rich experience in dealing with cases related to bank secrecy.
Can you tell us about your firm?
We are four associates, including Mr Peter de la Gandara, who was one of the firm’s founders almost thirty years ago. We all have different specialities. Peter and I work mostly in the field of banks, finance, and economic penal law. Our two associates focus more on administrative law and construction.
I work mostly on international cases, and within that, on international collaborations: there is a convention between European countries allowing them to collaborate on civil, penal, and even admnistrative cases.
How does it work?
In civil cases it allows a judge to hear a witness from abroad without having to move the witness or the court; they are simply heard by a local judge.
Specifically in the field of banking, collaborations happen when a fiscal or banking authority is investigating a bank account abroad. Technically, here in Switzerland we still have secrecy in banks but in practice there is a procedure that can be followed to have details unveiled on a specific case to obtain information.
Conversely, clients can oppose the unveiling of their banking situation in Switzerland but they need to put forward solid arguments and to defend their case because there are only specific reasons why this procedure could be stopped.
There are also cases in which clients would proactively seek to give information to their country of origin to avoid a potential lawsuit in the future. They would need solutions to present their banking situation in a way that can satisfy their fiscal authority and guarantee them a regularisation of their situation. I work on all these type of cases.
We use the Eurojuris network a lot, as we constantly need local partners to inform us about their legislation.
What qualities do you need to work in this field?
You need an awful lot of experience! I have been doing this for twenty years. The theory differs subtly from what happens on the field, which is actually much more complicated. Precedents are numerous and they are the key to understanding your work. You need to look into a lot of past decisions and to understand what they imply.
What is your best advice to a young lawyer today?
Specialisation, definitely. My generation still very much work on a broad area of topics but I think this is fading out and this is not the future of our profession. In Geneva, it is such an international and diverse city that you find yourself working on many, many different things; we even work on divorce or naturalisation sometimes. But this will not last: the future for young lawyers is to get specialised. We can see it every day in our firm, anytime a young lawyer asks for an internship, they have a speciality or the beginning of a speciality they are seeking to develop. It is quite natural in this very competitive world.
