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Before the law, the Presidency of the Republic sent the text of the decision of the House of Representatives to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, requesting “the initiative to take legal and practical measures on the subject of accounting auditing focused on the accounts of the Banque du Liban and the pertinent authorities in accordance with Cabinet Resolution No. 3 of 03/26/2020 ”.
In turn, the Minister of Finance of the interim government, Ghazi Wazni, sent a letter to the head of the interim government, in which he said: “Considering that the governor of the Banque du Liban requested that he be provided with books by which the banking secrecy of state accounts and public authorities and institutions, and since the Ministry of Finance is directly responsible for state accounts, Sent a letter to the Governor of the Banque du Liban in which all its accounts are subject to audit forensic, in accordance with the decision of the House of Representatives mentioned above, and in compliance with the same, to accommodate the request to other legal entities of a public nature (public institutions, municipalities and departments with attached budgets …) that have accounts in a bank, Lebanon, to send a letter submitting their accounts to the required forensic accounting audit.
At the same time, my peso had again written to the company “Álvarez y Marsal” asking if he wanted to fulfill his mission again, attaching his letter to the text of the resolution that the Chamber of Deputies drafted.
And because bank secrecy was the greatest obstacle to the mission of the auditing company, especially with regard to state accounts (departments, public institutions, funds, interests and municipalities), although some jurists considered that the state accounts were basically exposed and did not need a legal basis to lift the secret while the Bank of Lebanon had done so. Another point of view says that it is automatically covered by bank secrecy when entering the accounts of the Banque du Liban, and the accounts of private banks, where billions have been spent under the heading of financial engineering, the House of Representatives returned to the law to lift bank secrecy and approved the proposal to “suspend the work of the bank secrecy law issued on 3/9/1956 and all the articles it refers to for a period of one year, will be effective as as of the date of publication of this law in everything related to financial auditing and criminal investigation operations decided and decided by the government on the accounts of the Central Bank, whatever the nature of these accounts, ministries, departments, public institutions , bodies, councils and funds, as indicated In the decision of the Chamber of Deputies, and for the purposes of this audit and exclusively for the interest of those who performed, the effect of the suspension includes all accounts that enter audits.
On this basis, it seems that the Minister of Finance will once again intensify his contacts with the company “Álvarez y Marsal”, after the latter informed the latter that changing its functions means changing the contract. After his meeting with President Michel Aoun, the Finance Minister confirmed that “it was decided, based on the law of the House of Representatives and governmental decisions, to contact the Alvarez & Marsal Company to follow up on the financial criminal audit of the accounts of the Banque du Liban, ministries, independent interests, funds and public institutions ”.
According to those familiar with the position of the Minister of Finance, the return to negotiations with the aforementioned company is the quickest way, especially since opening the door to negotiations with a new company will cost more time, while the law is linked to the terms (only one year), so it is better to reach an agreement with “Álvarez”. Especially since the budget for this mission is already allocated, so there is no problem in trying again in light of the legal developments that are taking place and that it has already fulfilled part of its mission. So it would be helpful to convince her to complete the rest.
They add that the company, in principle, has registered its agreement to open the door to negotiate the contract modification, and its representatives are expected to be in Beirut early next year to begin negotiations with the Ministry of Finance, to first determine the nature of the task, its cost, and the period of time the company needs to implement the task.
In theory, you don’t need a session or two with the audit firm to agree with it to re-engage in Lebanese financial brokers and expose the hidden. Scientifically, no one has a definitive answer on whether the Banque du Liban will disclose the company’s private bank accounts or re-invoke bank secrecy. Furthermore, no one has any idea how long the audit will take if the company decides to start auditing it “in parallel”, from the smallest municipality and “going up” … and if it was really required to be an “impossible task”.
