New rules to speed up freezing and confiscating criminal assets across the EU

11 January 2018

It will be quicker and easier for a member state to request that the property of a criminal in another member state be frozen or confiscated, compared to existing EU measures, under the new rules adopted by the Civil Liberties Committee.

Shorter deadlines

MEPs want member states who receive a freezing or confiscation order to be bound to execute it within 20 days, as opposed to the 60 days proposed by the Commission, so that criminals do not have time to move their assets.

The deadline may, however, be postponed, for instance if the confiscation would hurt an ongoing criminal investigation.

Victims’ compensation a priority

Victims will be the first in line to receive compensation when distributing the confiscated assets. In cases of confiscations worth more than €10,000, the money that remains after the compensation would be shared between the issuing and executing member state by 70% and 30% respectively, MEPs agreed. [...]

The new regulation, proposed by the Commission in December 2016 as part of its Action Plan against terrorist financing, replaces two pieces of legislation and introduces measures such as a widened scope of recognition, so member states should carry out confiscations for each other:

• even if the assets are not the direct proceeds of crime
• even if the assets belong to a third party
• even if there is no conviction, for instance if the suspect has fled

Full press release

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