Spain: Compliance

In January 2006 a bill has been submitted to the Spanish Parliament concerning access to the legal profession. At present when students obtain their Law degree they automatically become legal practitioners. Any Law-degree holder (the course is completed over a five-year period), may be admitted to the Bar Association as from the next day he finishes he studies and from that very moment he may act as legal counsel in any matter regardless of its nature, complexity or amount.

1 July 2005 marked exactly one year since Council Regulation nº 1383/2003, came into force to replace Regulation (EC) nº 3295/94, concerning customs actions against goods suspected of infringing certain intellectual property rights and the measures to be taken against goods found to have infringed such rights.

On July 5, 2003, Law 19/2003 on the legal system governing capital movements and financial transactions with other countries and on certain measures for preventing money laundering (the "Law") was published in the Official Gazette.