On Thursday 23 April, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved the adoption of a new protocol to the ‘Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism’.
Adoption is scheduled for 15 May, at the annual conference of Member States’ foreign affairs ministers in Chișinău.
Described as providing “genuine added value to asset recovery standards” by Gustaf Göthberg (Swedish, EPP), who presented the report in the absence of its author, Constantinos Efstathiou (Cypriot, Socialist), the intention of this protocol is to enable courts to confiscate assets without a criminal conviction - provided their criminal origin is established and subject to safeguards against abuse - as well as to facilitate establishing asset recovery and management offices.
The powers of Financial Intelligence Units are set to be expanded to allow them to suspend suspicious transactions and freeze accounts, while victim compensation is established as a key priority.
The cross-border dimension of this type of crime is addressed through the streamlining of procedures for information exchange, the setting up of joint investigation teams and the tracing of assets across borders.
The Assembly also expressed regret that, despite having been open for signature for over twenty years, certain Member States and the EU have still not signed or ratified the main convention, and urged them to do so.
Link to Opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/lop (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)