The CARPA account: definition, how it works and safeguards

When a lawyer receives funds on behalf of their clients, they cannot deposit them in an ordinary bank account. Any handling of funds must pass through the CARPA — the French bar's fund-handling body, the Caisse des Règlements Pécuniaires des Avocats. This institution, specific to the profession, governs and checks every movement. It is what gives an escrow entrusted to a lawyer its solidity.

What is the CARPA?

The CARPA — Caisse des Règlements Pécuniaires des Avocats, the French bar's fund-handling body — is the institution, specific to the legal profession, through which any handling of funds carried out for a client must pass. Operating under the authority of the bars, it secures, checks and guarantees every financial movement. The term 'CARPA account' therefore refers to the account, opened with a banking institution and run under CARPA rules, on which a lawyer deposits the funds they receive — in particular those they hold in escrow.

How does a CARPA account work?

A CARPA account is not an ordinary bank account: it is an account dedicated to the handling of clients' funds, separate from the lawyer's own professional account. For each matter, a sub-account is opened and linked to the relevant file. Every incoming payment and every outgoing release is checked and can only be executed if it is justified and allocated to an identified transaction.

Who can open a CARPA account?

Only lawyers can handle funds through a CARPA account: a private individual or a company cannot open one. It is both a prerogative and an obligation of the profession, under the supervision of the bar. Entrusting an escrow to a lawyer therefore means benefiting from a reserved, regulated framework that no unregulated third party can offer.

A check on every movement

The CARPA verifies the origin and destination of the funds. No payment in and no release can take place unless the transaction is justified and linked to an identified matter. This check contributes to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (AML-CFT): the source of the sums held in escrow and the identity of the parties are verified.

A sub-account dedicated to your matter

Funds held in escrow are never mixed with others. They are deposited in a sub-account opened specifically for your matter, isolated and traceable. This ring-fencing ensures that the sums remain allocated to your matter alone, from the initial payment through to their release.

Traceability and professional secrecy

Every step is time-stamped and documented. To this is added the lawyer's professional secrecy, which covers all the information and documents of the matter. CARPA escrow thus combines three protections: institutional control over the handling of funds, isolation of the sums, and the confidentiality attached to the lawyer's involvement.

What does the CARPA account actually guarantee?

For the person entrusting funds, the CARPA account translates into tangible safeguards at every stage of the escrow:

• The funds are deposited with a banking institution, within a regulated framework specific to the legal profession;
• Every payment in and every release is subject to a check on the allocation of the funds;
• The sums held in escrow are never mixed with the lawyer's own funds or with those of other matters;
• The origin of the funds and the identity of the parties are verified as part of anti-money-laundering measures (AML-CFT).

CARPA and the lawyer's liability

The handling of funds is an activity governed by the lawyer's rules of professional conduct, under the supervision of their professional body. The lawyer acting as escrow agent bears liability for the safekeeping and release of the funds, which gives the escrow a solidity that a simple deposit into the hands of a private individual does not offer. It is this combination — the CARPA framework, professional conduct rules and professional liability — that makes a lawyer a particularly safe escrow agent.

Fidens keeps the funds of your transactions on a dedicated CARPA account, under a lawyer's responsibility, and releases them upon satisfaction of the agreed conditions.