Why Use a Law Firm ?

The answer is simple. All your transactions with a Guatemala Law Firm are covered by tight Attorney Client Privileged Communication. The lawyer/law firm cannot reveal anything about the client or their transactions, business dealings, etc. unless specifically authorized by the client. The exception to this would be if ordered by a Guatemala Court, which is a possibility but something very rarely seen. Attorney Client privilege is much stronger in Guatemala than it is in Europe or North America.

Lawyers have to pass background checks from their government in addition to attending law school. The government knows who their lawyers are and regulates them. Lawyers have obligations and fiduciary responsibilities to their clients.

We see many people buying corporations, trusts, etc. from non-lawyer web based businesses and also using non-lawyers for bank accounts. It for some reason never occurs to the client that the entity they are doing business with has all their private financial information such as name of their company, ownership of the company, passports, bank and business reference letters, addresses, phones, email, business information, where their bank account is, etc. These entities they are doing business with have no binding legislation or regulations on them preventing them from revealing any of this information to whomever they wish to reveal it to. In most cases they could not protect the client if they wanted to since they have no privileged communication. If they got a phone call from a governmental agency from 6,000 miles away the chances are they would cave in and provide the requested information.

These phone calls usually go like this: I am so and so Inspector with the Tax Police of ABC country. Your country already knows that I am investigating this case. This means he sent an email to the government, maybe a fax or maybe nothing at all. I have a court order signed by a Judge would you like me to fax it over to you? The court order is as a rule never valid in the jurisdiction he is calling.

Now when your friendly corporation registered agent says something cute like the court order is not from here and you have no authority here what he gets back sounds like this. If you fail to cooperate I will file a suspicious criminal actions report with your national police since for all we know you are the owners of the corporation in question and are the guilty parties and we will ask that you be investigated by your national police. This is usually done in a threatening way since it is a bluff. Now the corporate agent thinking the last thing he needs is to be the subject of an investigation by his own police and has to hire a lawyer, etc. says, wait a minute what is it you want? Okay wait while I pull it up for you. This probably took 3-5 minutes and your privacy is violated.

No attorney client privilege means no downside for the corporate agent to cooperate. What would we say? We’d say there is attorney client privilege in Guatemala and you must get a court order from a Guatemala Judge ordering us to release any information about any client and then we’d hang up without providing any information.

Corporate Agents Offering corporations in Many Jurisdictions - Do not be deceived by firms that offer bank accounts and corporations from numerous countries. They are merely corporate agents or resellers of corporations from these countries. It is not very hard to become a reseller in many of these countries. Their ploy for credibility is selling from many different countries so you see a big shopping list of jurisdictions and think they are a real credible operation when they are really nothing more than a relatively unregulated offshore corporation based in some tax haven selling you formations in different jurisdictions most of which are not any good for asset protection, corporate privacy, or even bank secrecy.

If you read through our web site you will soon realize that most if not all of these jurisdictions are “has been” privacy jurisdictions that are no longer private. Most clients do not know this and the names ring familiar from years. They sell these products to people who are familiar with the jurisdiction from the past reputation but have not followed the recent changes in the laws relating to these jurisdictions in the post 9-11 world. If we knew of a better approach than what we use to protect privacy and assets with all these new treaties we would offer it!

Law Firms in Your Own Country - Be careful about using a law firm in your own country even if they offer to set up an offshore structure for you. The weak link in the chain is the attorney is located in the country where you are. If you felt your country respected the individual’s right to privacy and operated a fair and equitable court system you would probably not be reading this.

Attacking Home Country Attorney Client Privilege - An adversary can attack the attorney client privilege claiming your attorney conspired with you or was complicit in some way in something you allegedly did like the fraudulent conveyance of assets to avoid creditors, fraud, misrepresentation, tax violations pertaining to income tax, sales tax, property tax, gift tax, inheritance tax, probate tax, corporate tax, capital gains tax and other assorted and sundry taxes, creation of straw man trusts and other asset protection shams, money laundering, and the list can go on and on.

We are not saying you did or should do such things, in fact you should not do such things, we are saying it can be alleged that you did such things and these allegations in these non-privacy countries are enough to break the attorney client privilege you have with the attorney. Jurisdictions that do not respect privacy and do not have fair and equitable court systems are not going to let a thing like attorney client privilege stop a big law firm from taking away your assets in the name of justice.

Suing your Attorney - Let’s assume the judge not understanding too much about offshore structures says well I don’t see anything here to justify the violation of attorney client privilege, what do you think the other side does next, walk away and forget about you? Not so fast, they can smell your assets and want a big bite as soon as they can get it. They see a chink in your armor that they are not finished exploiting. The chink is you did not use an attorney in a privacy-oriented jurisdiction even though you might have used an offshore structure in one. So now they just add your attorney into the lawsuit as an additional defendant alleging him or her to be a conspirator in the plot to defraud the creditor out of his pound of flesh he wishes to take from your life savings, real estate, business, estate, etc.

This gives them a shot at piercing attorney client privilege which is to say the attorney used an offshore structure to make discovery impossible thus thwarting justice and is sheltering the defendants assets behind attorney client privilege as an another layer in the scheme to defraud their client from collecting his lawful court ordered debt by grabbing your assets. If the other side is motivated and has money they will wear down your asset protection strategy until they can reach out and grab your assets.

If you sued a lawyer in a privacy jurisdiction like Guatemala and did your formations there and banked there, you would be the one wearing down your adversary who would be getting frustrated spending time and money and getting nowhere in the Guatemala courts. They would be getting their cases dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, incorrect venue, etc. This could motivate your adversary to settle for pennies on the dollar after they had a very expensive taste of the Guatemala Courts, or they just decide they can’t penetrate your structure not even being sure what your structure is and plain give up. Using a lawyer in your own country to formulate your asset protection strategy is a weak link that should not be presented to a financial enemy. The same applies to using an attorney in another country where privacy and justice have disappeared.

One privacy hating unfair jurisdiction can usually reach out to another privacy hating unfair jurisdiction and get their assistance, alleging almost anything will work in these jurisdictions. Some of these countries actually respect the court orders from another country, all that is required is a trip to the local court to have the foreign court order rubber stamped and thus domesticated and made enforceable. This is common with money judgments from foreign countries in the privacy hating jurisdictions but you do not have much to worry about in Guatemala.

How to do it - Use a law firm only in the jurisdiction where your corporation, foundation and bank are located. This way not only can the law firm that did your asset protection structure help you if trouble comes knocking on your door but your confidential information is out of reach of the courts your financial enemies will use. Do not use a corporation agent or non-lawyer for your asset protection. There is no attorney client privilege. Today the only secure way is to use International Trust Agreement Banking.

For more information go here:
Guatemala Trust Agreement Banking

Anonymity is your Friend - Anonymity is your first line of defense. Only use anonymous bearer share corporations or anonymous foundations where no ownership records are in existence in any government registry. Make sure the publicly recorded nominees of the corporation or foundation do not know the owners. Make sure there is tight Bank Secrecy even though today it is only helpful for some civil issues no longer effective for taxes or government queries. Make sure there is strong attorney client privilege. Make sure the jurisdiction in question allows for no fishing expeditions. Make sure the jurisdiction does not allow civil lawsuits concerning matters that did not take place in the jurisdiction to be tried in their courts just because the corporation, foundation or bank account is domiciled there.

Best Jurisdiction – Today with the new tax treaties allowing for information sharing on suspicion of tax evasion amongst 82 OECD nations, there is no more magic safe jurisdiction. All the countries are going to share your banking information based on a “suspicion” of tax evasion. Forget about evidence being needed. The only way to remain secure and private is to use the International Trust Agreement banking. We do this in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Ecuador. If there were a request for the bank records they would list the law firm as the signatory and beneficiary owner of the bank account. Then getting the law firm records as to whom their client is would involve a court case. The law firm is not a bank and is not involved in the bank treaty. The obtaining of information regarding the client would eventually go to court case in Guatemala and there evidence would be required tying the bank account directly to a major crime. Trumped up charges of tax evasion, money laundering, conspiracy and the usual unsubstantiated charges would not work.

For more information go here:
Guatemala Trust Agreement Banking

Questions – Feel free to contact us by email, phone, skype, our secure encrypted chat or yahoo messenger.