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Best Practices PaPer
Best Practices ON cONFiscatiON (RECOMMENDATIONS 4 AND 38) AND A FRAMEWORK FOR ONGOING WORK ON asset recOVerY
October 2012
FINANCIAL ACTION TASK FORCE
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an independent inter-governmental body that develops and
promotes policies to protect the global financial system against money laundering, terrorist financing
and the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The FATF Recommendations are
recognised as the global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) standard.
For more information about the FATF, please visit the website:
www.fatf-gafi.org
© 2012 FATF/OECD. All rights reserved. No reproduction or translation of this publication may be made without prior written permission.
Applications for such permission, for all or part of this publication, should be made to the FATF Secretariat, 2 rue André Pascal 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France
(fax: +33 1 44 30 61 37 or e-mail: contact@fatf-gafi.org).
mailto:contact@fatf-gafi.org
BEST PRACTICES
ON CONFISCATION (RECOMMENDATIONS 4 AND 38) AND A FRAMEWORK FOR ONGOING WORK ON ASSET RECOVERY
2012 OECD/FATF 1
BEST PRACTICES ON CONFISCATION (RECOMMENDATIONS 4 AND 38) AND A
FRAMEWORK FOR ONGOING WORK ON ASSET RECOVERY
I. INTRODUCTION
1. A robust system of provisional measures and confiscation is an important part of an effective
anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime. Confiscation prevents criminal
property from being laundered or reinvested either to facilitate other forms of crime or to conceal
illicit proceeds. In itself, this can significantly stifle organised criminal operations, break them or
frustrate the movement of proceeds realised from crime. Reducing the rewards of crime, affects the
balance of risk and reward, and the prospect of losing profits may deter some from crime. It may
also allow the victim of the crime to be partially or fully compensated, even when the proceeds are
moved around the world. This is particularly relevant in the case of asset recovery.
2. This paper sets out international best practices to assist countries1 in their implementation of
Recommendations 4 and 38, and to address impediments to effective confiscation and asset
recovery in the international context.
II. DEFINITIONS
3. For the purposes of this Best Practices Paper, the following definitions apply:
(a) The terms confiscation and non-conviction based confiscation are defined in the
Glossary to the FATF Recommendations.
(b) The term asset recovery means the return or repatriation of the illicit proceeds, where
those proceeds are located in foreign countries.
III. TRACING AND INVESTIGATION
4. A core element of Recommendation 4 is that there should be measures in place to identify,
trace and evaluate property which is subject to confiscation. Likewise, Recommendation 38 requires
that there be authority to take expeditious action in response to requests by foreign countries to
identify property which may be subject to confiscation.
1 All reference to country or countries apply equally to territories or jurisdictions.
BEST PRACTICES
ON CONFISCATION (RECOMMENDATIONS 4 AND 38) AND A FRAMEWORK FOR ONGOING WORK ON ASSET RECOVERY
2012 OECD/FATF 2
5. The following best practices for countries help to strengthen legal frameworks and ensure
that asset tracing and financial investigations can be conducted effectively.
(a) Ensure that appropriate procedures and legal frameworks are in place to allow
informal exchanges of information to take place, including prior to the letter of request
for mutual legal assistance being submitted. Such procedures and frameworks may
include building relationships between practitioners. This practice can help to focus
efforts and resources before the request reaches a formal stage.
(b) Competent authorities should also engage with foreign counterparts, from a bilateral
or regional perspective, and utilise appropriate international bodies such as the
Egmont Group, INTERPOL, Europol and Eurojust.
(c) Ensure that appropriate procedures and legal frameworks are in place to allow
information deemed to be useful to be shared on a spontaneous basis, subject to
controls and safeguards to ensure that the information is used only in an authorised
manner, without a request being received to trigger this exchange. The practice of
spontaneously exchanging information relating to asset tracing and financial
investigation helps to facilitate a culture of reciprocity.
(d) Enter into general arrangements, including formal bi-lateral asset sharing agreements,
with other countries. Having asset sharing agreements in place should not be a pre-
requisite for co-operation, but may have a significant bearing on the resources
allocated to facilitate asset tracing requests. Additionally, the existence of a formal bi-
lateral asset-sharing agreement is often a significant incentive to the executing country
to execute requests for asset tracing.
6. The following best practices for countries help to minimise structural impediments to
effective asset tracing and financial investigation.
(a) Ensure that foreign counterparts can easily identify appropriate points of contact.
(b) At the domestic level, implement mechanisms to co-ordinate asset tracing and
financial investigations with a view to ensuring that such efforts are not impeded by
regionalised or fragmented systems, or competing local priorities.
(c) Consider establishing specialised units or dedicated personnel with training in
specialised financial investigation techniques. Such personnel should be adequately
resourced and trained.
(d) Establish mechanisms that allow for rapid access to high quality information on the
ownership and control of such property (e.g. land, vehicles, legal persons). Ideally, such
information should be available without the need for a formal request.
(e) Explore mechanisms, in consultation with the private sector, that would facilitate more
rapid access to financial information, including where the requesting countries has
only minimal information (e.g. the specific account number is not previously known).
For example, countries could consider, inter alia, the feasibility of establishing a central
register of bank accounts or, alternatively, other mechanisms that would offer less
BEST PRACTICES
ON CONFISCATION (RECOMMENDATIONS 4 AND 38) AND A FRAMEWORK FOR ONGOING WORK ON ASSET RECOVERY
2012 OECD/FATF 3
fragmented access to financial information which is already being held in a centralised
way.
7. The following best practices for countries help to streamline the processes and procedures
for conducting asset tracing and financial investigations2.
(a) In the case of both formal and informal requests, emphasise the importance of
handling external requests in a timely way, as a policy objective. Setting targets and
monitoring performance in executing asset tracing requests from overseas would be
useful to ensure that such policy objectives are met.
(b) In the case of formal requests, reduce any unnecessary bureaucracy, both in terms of
sending out the request (if requests are filtered through central points domestically)
and in terms of receiving and processing incoming requests. For example, agreed
standard formats and terminology for submitting requests between countries would
go some way to reducing bureaucratic barriers.
8. To address cultural issues that may impede asset tracing and financial investigations, it is
best practice for countries to promote a culture of reciprocity, based on a mutual level of trust and
understanding, whereby each country can expect to receive an acknowledgement that appropriate
and timely action is being taken. This practice would help to strengthen asset tracing and financial
investigations at the international level, particularly where effective bi-lateral agreements or
informal networks currently do not exist, or where requests are given lesser priority on the basis
that the requesting country is poor at facilitating asset tracing.
IV. INTERNATIONAL CO-ORDINATION
9. Recommendation 38 requires countries to have authority to take expeditious action in
response to requests by foreign countries, and arrangements for co-ordinating freezing, seizure and
confiscation proceedings, which should include the sharing of confiscated assets, particularly when
confiscation is directly or indirectly a result of co-ordinated law enforcement actions. Countries are
also required to consider establishing an asset forfeiture fund into which all or a portion of
2 Separate from seizure and confiscation provisions, as laid out in this paper and as required by
Recommendations 4 and 38, in some specific cases, the securing and safekeepin
Recommended