Authorities in Cusco in southeast Peru have succeeded in recovering a house and land linked to acts of corruption by the former mayor of the province of Canchis, using a recently introduced non-conviction based forfeiture law.
In an article published in the inaugural issue of the Bulletin of The International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators, Oscar Solorzano and Gretta Fenner analyse a recent decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, which cleared the way for returning funds tied to corruption to Peru. The decision sets an important precedent for the use of non-conviction based forfeiture laws to recover illicit assets in the absence of a criminal conviction. This is a crucial step in the fight against global corruption.
As the war in Ukraine intensifies, calls are growing for states to confiscate Russian assets frozen under sanctions and redirect them to provide support to Ukraine. Our latest Working Paper argues that states can and should do this by enhancing the effectiveness and scope of established asset recovery measures – not by introducing new untested mechanisms that risk inviting future legal challenges, defeating the purpose of sanctions and violating the rule of law.