Asset recovery

This Working Paper explores the wide variety of non-conviction based (NCB) forfeiture laws in Latin America, with a special focus on the region’s predominant model, Extinción de dominio.

It argues that NCB forfeiture legislation, which allows for the recovery of stolen assets outside of criminal proceedings, can contribute significantly to a state’s criminal policy response to rampant economic and organised crime.

The paper emphasises the importance of critically reviewing and harmonising domestic practices of NCB forfeiture around emerging standards, so that they can reach their large potential in asset recovery. Ensuring their alignment with international human rights and other recognised norms and procedural rules ultimately builds trust, lends legitimacy and fosters judicial cooperation in international NCB forfeiture cases.

About this report

Asset recovery is a critical tool in the fight against corruption and organised crime. But what happens after assets have been confiscated? How can they be most effectively repurposed, in order to contribute to sustainable and equitable development?

This Quick Guide examines the various approaches that states take along these lines – how they allocate recovered funds towards general government spending, redirect assets towards public interest causes or repatriate assets to their country of origin.

It is drawn from a comparative study of good practices in asset recovery legislation in selected Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) participating States, published as Working Paper 51 in March 2024 by the Basel Institute on Governance and OSCE.

About this Quick Guide

This case study describes how Switzerland is putting to test a rarely used but powerful law in order to confiscate assets connected to Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity, with the aim of returning these to Ukraine.

Key points:

• Switzerland is in the midst of administrative proceedings to confiscate around CHF 130 million in assets linked to the regime of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
• This case study examines the first of a series of cases concerned by these proceedings. Announced in May 2022, it involves over CHF 100 million in assets held by a close associate of the former president, Yuriy Ivanyushchenko and his family. They have been frozen in Switzerland since Yanukovych was deposed in Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
• These efforts are significant as they may allow the return of assets to the people of Ukraine at a time of immense need.
• Just as importantly though, the move demonstrates how states can proactively seek ways to use their full legal toolkit to confiscate illicit assets linked to political exposed persons and ensure they are put to good use.
• It also demonstrates how states have opportunities to strengthen their adoption and use of established asset recovery mechanisms to interrupt the type of kleptocracies that have enabled the war in Ukraine in the first place.

Open-access licence and acknowledgements

Practically every country has a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and it plays a vital role in combating money laundering and other financial crimes. Yet there is often confusion – even among anti-corruption authorities – about how it works, what it can and can’t do, and what value it brings.

Thierry Ravalomanda, Senior Asset Recovery Specialist offers a quick overview.