The Swedish Presidency believes that it is very close to reaching an agreement in the EU Council on the new directive on the freezing and confiscation of assets of criminal groups, as well as potentially of persons subject to international sanctions, such as Russian oligarchs (see EUROPE 12960/6).
An agreement could be reached at the next ‘Home Affairs’ Council to be held on 8 and 9 June.
To this end, the Presidency was to submit a new compromise document to the Council’s COPEN (Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters) Working Party on 12 May on the last articles on which it believed an agreement was still needed. Articles 3, 6, 11, 23 and 26 specifically look at: - the definition of confiscation (the permanent deprivation of property ordered by a judicial authority in relation to a criminal offence or criminal behaviour); - information made available to national asset recovery offices; - freezing orders; - remedies for persons impacted by these freezing and confiscation measures.
The 4 May compromise also covers the establishment of centralised registers of confiscated property.
A new feature of the directive proposed in May is the obligation for Member States to open asset tracing investigations to facilitate cross-border investigations, although the compromise takes note that this can also cover non-cross-border cases. It also calls for the opening of asset recovery offices. The issue divided Member States last year (see EUROPE 13135/10).
Regarding these recovery offices, the compromise notes that the Directive “leaves it to Member States to determine which competent authorities should be empowered to take immediate action” (such as an immediate freezing order).
However, Member States may “allow Asset Recovery Offices to take the immediate action where necessary to preserve the property that they have traced and identified” in cases where these offices are exercising their functions.
Link to the compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/6ux (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)