The Basel Institute on Governance participated in several workshops between 8 and 9 October 2012 with key stakeholders of the South African anti-corruption system (Asset Forfeiture Unit of the National Prosecuting Authority, Special Investigating Unit, Department of Public Service Administration, South African Revenue Services, National Treasury, Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigations of the South African Police Services) at a special session hosted by the Anti-Corruption Task Team (ACTT).

The note evaluates the current legislation on the asset recovery process both at the EU and Member States level, with a view to assessing the need and the feasibility of establishing EU regulation on the use of confiscated assets for civil society and in particular for social purposes.

A fundamental priority for law enforcement authorities dealing with financial crime is to recover illegally obtained assets and deny criminals access to the proceeds of their crime. The recovery of illegally obtained assets, however, requires first to successfully trace them.

Corruption is one of the endemic evils in today’s world. The phenomenon has negative impacts on world poverty, democratic governance, progress and development. According to the World Bank, USD 20 to 40 billion is lost annually by developing nations because of corruption. With the adoption of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), the international community aims at setting up a comprehensive global framework to contain and ultimately lower significantly the levels of corruption worldwide.

Street protests in the ‘Arab Spring’ countries have illustrated that public demand for recovering stolen assets has grown exponentially, as have expectations by concerned populations and governments. From a topic discussed in expert forums, it has thus become a topic of the people. The question is: Have practitioners and policy makers delivered on these expectations?

Non-state actors are of fundamental importance in the prevention and combating of corruption within asset recovery processes. Their roles and responsibilities were considered during an experts’ meeting hosted by the Basel Institute on Governance and the International Anti-Corruption Academy in September 2010.

This book contains essays presented at the seminar written by practitioners and academics with extensive experience in the field of CTF. The authors offer a diversity of views on the domestic, regional and international initiatives aimed at detecting terrorist funds in the financial system, preventing terrorists from moving their money via alternative financial channels and facilitating the recovery of terrorist assets.