Restraint, Confiscation & Asset Recovery
The UK Government is committed to recovering money or assets that are, or represent, the proceeds of crime, as well as money that is intended for use in crime.
The Home Office’s Asset Recovery Action Plan makes it clear that one of the Government’s objectives is to “increase dramatically the quantity of criminal assets recovered”. In the short term, the Government is committed to doubling its annual recovery in order to meet its target of recovering over £250 million worth of assets by 2009-10. In the long term, the Government’s ambition is to recover up to £1 billion of assets annually and to make asset recovery action a core part of the criminal justice system.
In recent years, the landscape of asset recovery has been radically reformed by the introduction of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (“POCA”), which has had a significant effect on the amount of assets that have been recovered since it was implemented. Home Office analysis suggests that the Government met its annual target to recover £125 million of criminal assets in 2006-07, which represents a five-fold increase in that which was achieved just five years previously. In the period form April 2007 until February 2008, the courts in England and Wales made 4,504 confiscation orders with a total value of £225.87 million.
POCA provides the authorities with enhanced powers from the restraint of assets at the start of a criminal investigation; and the subsequent confiscation of a criminal’s assets, if a conviction follows, is now far more likely. However, that is only a limited example of the vast range of powers now at the disposal of the authorities.
With their wide-ranging powers and dedicated confiscation departments, the authorities can pursue a criminal’s assets through restraint, receivership and confiscation proceedings in the criminal courts. Assets obtained through unlawful conduct can also be recovered in the civil courts even without the requirement of a criminal conviction.
In addition, cash over £1,000 of any denomination that is, or represents, property obtained through unlawful conduct or that is intended to be used in unlawful conduct can be seized, on the basis of a suspicion on the part of a police or customs officer, immediately upon discovery and subsequently forfeited upon application to the civil courts.
Finally, it is becoming increasingly common for the prosecuting authorities to launch parallel civil claims for damages against an individual who is the subject of criminal proceedings in order that a freezing order over their assets can be obtained in the High Court, with the civil claim surviving a dismissal or an acquittal in the criminal proceedings.
In the context of these developments, covering both criminal and civil law, BCL provides expert advice and representation in relation to the seizure, forfeiture, restraint, freezing, receivership, confiscation and recovery of assets whether in the criminal or civil courts.
