A New Dawn For Professional Secrecy In Luxembourg

A draft law that affects professional secrecy has been adopted—well, not secretly, but perhaps out of the spotlight. Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna, back in July 2016, proposed draft law no. 7024 on the eve of the parliamentary break. The draft would implement, nationally in Luxembourg, a European regulation¹ on interchange fees for card-based payments, with the larger goal of making data outsourcing to intragroup or external providers easier. But the draft also modified the Laws of 5 April 1993 and 7 December 2015, removing the obligation to process financial institutions' data inside Luxembourg's borders. This reduces the scope of professional secrecy.

On 22 February 2018, the State Council opted not to revise the draft law, meaning that it is now deemed to be adopted. It has thus become to Law of 27 February 2018, and came into force a month ago on 5 March 2018.