A/AC.291/L.15 offences for which a legal person may be held liable in accordance with article 18 of this Convention in the requesting State Party. [agreed ad referendum] 3. Mutual legal assistance to be afforded in accordance with this article may be requested for any of the following purposes: (a) Taking evidence or statements from persons; (b) Effecting service of judicial documents; (c) Executing searches and seizures, and freezing; (d) Searching or similarly accessing, seizing or similarly securing, and disclosing electronic data stored by means of an information and communications technology system pursuant to article 44 of this Convention; (e) Collecting traffic data in real time pursuant to article 45 of this Convention; (f) Intercepting content data pursuant to article 46 of this Convention; (g) Examining objects and sites; (h) Providing information, evidence and expert evaluations; [ agreed ad referendum] (i) Providing originals or certified copies of relevant documents and records, including government, bank, financial, corporate or business records; (j) Identifying or tracing proceeds of crime, property, instrumentalities or other things for evidentiary purposes; (k) Party; (l) Facilitating the voluntary appearance of persons in the requesting State Recovering proceeds of crime; [agreed ad referendum] (m) Any other type of assistance that is not contrary to the domestic law of the requested State Party. [agreed ad referendum] 4. Without prejudice to domestic law, the competent authorities of a State Party may, without prior request, transmit information relating to criminal matters to a competent authority in another State Party where they believe that such information could assist the authority in undertaking or successfully concluding inquiries and criminal proceedings or could result in a request formulated by the latter State Party pursuant to this Convention. [agreed ad referendum] 5. The transmission of information pursuant to paragraph 4 of this article shall be without prejudice to inquiries and criminal proceedings in the State of the competent authorities providing the information. The competent authorities receiving the information shall comply with a request that said information remain confidential, even temporarily, or with restrictions on its use. However, this shall not prevent the receiving State Party from disclosing in its proceedings information that is exculpatory to an accused person. In such a case, the receiving State Party shall notify the transmitting State Party prior to the disclosure and, if so requested, consult with the transmitting State Party. If, in an exceptional case, advance notice is not possible, the receiving State Party shall inform the transmitting State Party of the disclosure without delay. [agreed ad referendum] 6. The provisions of this article shall not affect obligations under any other treaty, bilateral or multilateral, that governs or will govern, in whole or in part, mutual legal assistance. [agreed ad referendum] 7. Paragraphs 8 to 31 of this article shall apply to requests made pursuant to this article if the States Parties in question are not bound by a treaty on mutual legal assistance. If those States Parties are bound by such a treaty, the corresponding provisions of that treaty shall apply unless the States Parties agree to apply paragraphs 8 to 31 of this article in lieu thereof. States Parties are strongly encouraged V.24-14137 21/41