Lawyers not bound to investigate source of fees paid by clients, NBA replies EFCC chairman

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) says lawyers are not bound to investigate sources of fees paid by their clients.

Ola Olukoyede, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Wednesday spoke at the annual conference of the NBA in Lagos and said lawyers must ensure they investigate the fees their clients paid them are not proceeds of crime.

However, in a statement issued on Thursday, Ibrahim Lawal, chairman of the Ibadan branch of NBA, said the EFCC chairman imposed a “professional direction unknown to our law,” with his comment.

“The leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ibadan Branch, the Premier Bar, hastens to join issues with the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr Ola Olukoyede, on the statement made at the Annual General Conference of the Nigeria Bar Association held in Lagos,” the statement reads.

“He spoke on the impropriety of lawyers receiving legal fees from what he termed ‘proceeds of crime’.

“He also imposes the duty of investigating the source(s) of the money payable as fees before collecting same, a professional direction unknown to our law.

“He equally suggested, curiously, that the Commission, under his watch, may be unwilling to follow all international conventions while combating financial crimes in Nigeria.

“The Chairman of the EFCC is not only a public officer. He is, more instructively, a member of the NBA. Consequently, it becomes incumbent on him to uphold the tenets of the profession and the sanctity of the judicial process in the course of the discharge of his official functions.

“He cannot act outside the law as it stands. The Supreme Court made it abundantly clear, even to laymen and people with average knowledge of the law as it is in the case F.R.N v. Ozekhome (2021) NWLR (Pt. 1782) 448 as follows:

“A legal practitioner is entitled to his fees for professional services rendered, and such fees cannot be rightly labelled as proceeds of crime. Further, it is not a requirement of the law that a legal practitioner would go into enquiry before receiving his fees from his client, to find out the source of the fund from which he would be paid…”

“Flowing from this decision, it would be surprising to imagine that any lawyer, let alone the Chairman of a Commission which is establishing and operating under the law, would embrace a course which suggests brazen disregard for the law of the land which he depends on, almost entirely, in the discharge of his responsibilities as a public officer. A lawyer is not under any obligations to investigate the source from which his fees will be paid.

“The NBA, Ibadan Branch, intends to engage, vigorously, any public officer, who may wish to arrogate to himself the power to act in contravention of the extant provisions of the law.”