The confiscation of criminal proceeds is a key global weapon against corruption, intended to ‘take the profit’ out of the crime – with the aim of returning that money to the public and, hopefully, deterring future corruption. The UK confiscation regime has been criticised, but in this blog post I show that the criticism is …
The Law Commission is taking a “once in a generation” opportunity to turn a good law bad. The review consultation closes on 18 December 2020, so there is still time to stop them. The paper has 104 questions, by Question Five, I was wondering how Britain had gone from the vaulting ambition of the new …
Every year hundreds of thousands of people in the worldwide financial sector generate information about money they suspect to be the proceeds of crime, they do this so that law enforcement can identify and recover it. Every year they assume that courts confiscate at least some of the money. The courts could do this, in …
This post explains the difference between confiscation, forfeiture, restraint, sequestration, seizing, freezing, civil recovery and asset recovery. This is to help you understand what is in the news, whichever country you are in. These terms are all lawful ways to deprive people of the proceeds of crime in litigation against criminals or criminal assets. They …
Modern confiscation in the UK can be divided into three main phases lasting about 15 years each. From 1971 to 1986 (instrumentalities only), 1986 to 2002 (direct proceeds), 2003 to 2017 (direct, indirect and criminal lifestyle proceeds).
A Fair Cop 