You must familiarise yourself with our Anti-Money Laundering and Sanctions Policy. Compliance with this is mandatory and failure to do so is a criminal offence. The policy sets out how to make a report. You should not leave anything to chance. If you have the slightest concern, you should call the MLRO, who is the Deputy MLRO for the Isle of Man (or Geoff Kermeen who is the MLRO of Keystone in the Isle of Man), after which you may be advised that you should make a report or otherwise that your concern is not reportable. The MLRO will tell you what to do. Confidentiality applies to your requests for guidance, it does not apply to your formal money laundering reports. Formal reports must always use our prescribed reporting form. Emailed reports will be treated as requests for guidance and not as a formal report.
If you are advised to make a report, then you must not report those suspicions to the client or allow the client to become aware of your suspicions. This may be tipping off' which itself is a criminal offence.
You must keep privilege in mind. You can seek guidance internally without breaching the client's privilege and this is why you are asked to telephone the MLRO. You may only make a report if doing so is not a breach of privilege. This applies to making internal reports. Naturally, privilege does not apply where the client waives it, but you should not ask the client to do so when it would not be in the client's interests to do so. Where the client would not be adversely affected by a report, then you are free to ask the client for consent to make a limited disclosure of the relevant facts to law enforcement. However, we advise you to speak to the MLRO first.
Any report you submit to the MLRO must then be passed on to law enforcement. The guidance is conflicting on whether a MLRO may withhold a report because it is privileged, as privilege is not a specified legislative reason for an MLRO not to make a report. This is why you must check first before making a report. It is a breach of the rules on confidentiality to make a report internally that would otherwise attract privilege
There is lots of guidance available. Your first port of call should be the MLRO or Geoff Kermeen who is the MLRO of Keystone in the Isle of Man, though you may also like to consider the Isle of Man FSA's long-form Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Handbook.