Overview
Watchlist screening is the process of checking your client's name against official and reputable databases to identify potential risks — such as sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEPs), or individuals with known adverse media or regulatory warnings.
Legl automatically performs a watchlist screening as part of every Client Due Diligence (CDD) report for individuals.
What you can use watchlist screening for
Law firms must ensure they do not act for individuals or entities subject to international sanctions, and must take appropriate measures when clients hold political roles or are linked to financial crime or reputational risk.
Watchlist screening helps your firm:
Meet AML and sanctions compliance obligations
Identify potential risks early in the client onboarding process
Maintain a clear audit trail of screening and review decisions
How watchlist screening works
Legl's watchlist screening searches across global and local data sources via our trusted data providers. These include:
Sanctions lists — such as OFSI (UK), OFAC (US), UN, EU, and other government-issued lists
PEP databases — identifying individuals who hold or have held prominent public roles, as well as their relatives and close associates
Adverse media — where available, to identify links to financial crime, corruption, or serious misconduct
Fitness and probity records — including disqualifications, enforcement actions, or regulatory bans
Warnings — flags issued by law enforcement or regulatory bodies for individuals or entities linked to suspected or confirmed law-breaking or regulatory breaches
ℹ️ Important
Each client's name, date of birth, and nationality are used to identify possible matches.
Where to find this in Legl
Your CDD report includes a Watchlist screening section showing:
A summary result: Clear or Consider
The number of potential matches found
A link to each individual profile returned from the screening databases
Each profile includes:
The matched name(s) and aliases
The categories in which the matches were found (e.g. Sanctions, PEP, Adverse media)
Key details such as date of birth, country, and relevant listing sources
A Clear result means no relevant matches were found. A Consider result means one or more potential matches require review to confirm whether they relate to your client.
Important information
A match does not mean the person is definitely sanctioned or a PEP — it means their details may match someone listed in these sources and require further review by your firm
Once screening is complete, results are stored within the client's CDD record and in a downloadable PDF report
If ongoing monitoring is enabled, Legl will automatically monitor the client against updated databases and notify your firm of any changes to matched profiles, or new matches
Marking results accurately (Yes/No) helps improve future ongoing monitoring alerts by reducing false positives