Law no. ( 29/2002 )
This is a non official translation
Law No. /29/
The President of the Republic By virtue of the Rules of Constitution And the approval of the People’s Assembly At the session held on 18/3/2001/ Issues the following:
- all banks that are running business in the Syrian Arab Republic shall be subject to the rules of profession secrecy.
- The banks shall have the right to open for the clients who are dealing with them numbered deposit accounts the owners of which shall not be known except by the Director in charge of the bank management and the one who is acting on his behalf duly. These banks shall also have the right to hire special safes to depositors.
The identity of the owner of the numbered account or the safe as well as the value of his accounts or assets shall not be revealed except by a written permission from the depositor or from his legal inheritors or legatees or in event that he declared his bankruptcy duly, or if a lawsuit related to a banking transaction between the banks and clients due to a request by the party considering this lawsuit.
- The employees at the banks mentioned above in Article 1 of this law and all those who are informed in any way, due to their capacity or position, of the entries of books, records, transactions, correspondence and investment certificates shall be obliged to keep these entries in secret, for the advantage of the bank and the clients. It shall not be permissible to them, under any circumstance, to divulge what they know about the names of clients and their funds and all things related to their deposits and banking matters to any person, whatever he is, an individual or an administrative or judicial party except in the cases mentioned above in Article 2 of this law.
- It is permissible that a written agreement be concluded in advance in the presence of the bank administration on giving the permission referred to in the Articles mentioned above in any of the deposit cases. This permission shall not be revoked except by the approval of all parties concerned in the same way in which that agreement was documented.
- Contrary to and text in effect, it is not permissible to seize the funds and assets deposited at the banks mentioned above in Article 1 except by a written permission from their owners or upon issuing irrevocable judicial rulings which stipulate that rights must be given by the depositors to either public or private parties.
- The banks mentioned above in Article 1 shall be permitted, with the aim of protecting the investment of their funds, to exchange (only) among them under complete secrecy the information pertinent to the accounts of clients.
- The legal inheritors of the depositor and the legatees shall have the right, by a permission from the judge competent, to be briefed on the deposits or assets of the depositor in order to be entered in the accounts of the legacy. And the judge competent shall be informing of the value of deposits and assets through a legal letter from the bank administration.
- those who breach the rules of this law shall be punished from a three-month to one-year imprisonment, and any violation of the rules of this law shall be punished by the same penalty. The lawsuit of public right shall not be filed except when the person, whose interest is harmed, submits his complaint.
- this law shall be promulgated and shall be considered effective on the date of issue.
Damascus: 16/4/þ2001
President of the Republic
Bashar al Assad
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