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In recent years an emerging global trend of introducing legislation to use civil procedures against criminal assets can be detected. However, these civil forfeiture models, which exist vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This paper seeks to identify issues which need to be considered when such a scheme is being designed and examines the options which have been adopted.

The paper examines the legislative provisions in a number of jurisdictions setting out the common issues which have arisen and the range of options which have attempted as potential solutions.

The paper concludes that jurisdictions which seek to introduce civil forfeiture legislations now have various examples from which to learn but that these models will likely evolve in the face of litigation and experience as legislatures and policymakers attempt to produce fair but effective procedures for the civil recovery of criminal proceeds.

As further jurisdictions respond to this emerging trend and draft their own legislation, there is much to be leant from the issues which others have considered necessary to address and the way in which these issues have been dealt with.

Over the last two decades in particular, national legislatures have passed legislation aimed at ensuring that criminals do not profit from crime. This has been in response to the rise of organised crime and to the massive amounts of money being generated, in particular, by drug trafficking. It has been an attempt to destroy ‘the heart of the monster, its financial base’. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the proceeds of crime response by national governments can be perceived as evolving through a series of different models, thus allowing a comparative approach amongst different jurisdictions. Each model is composed of elements from three different strands: money‐laundering legislation, confiscation legislation and organisational structures and arrangements. These strands have each gone through their own evolution, which will now be examined.

In November 1998, the Home Office Working Group on Confiscation, a group convened in 1990 to monitor the operation of confiscation and money‐laundering legislation, released its third report, a comprehensive examination of the confiscation and money‐laundering control regimes in England and Wales. The report recommends numerous changes, some of which fill gaps in the present framework and others that radically alter the methods deployed to ensure that criminal profits do not lie secure in the hands of their owners. Previous reports heavily influenced subsequent legislative developments so it is anticipated that this document foreshadows the legislative course to be pursued by the Labour Government in the near future.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the problem of tracing criminal proceeds through fungible mixtures, in the context of money laundering prosecutions and with a specific focus on whether clean withdrawals can be made from tainted mixtures.

The question of withdrawing clean funds from a tainted mixture is framed as a problem of proof rather than a problem of impossibility. The tracing rules are then engaged to overcome evidential difficulties, but the rules are shown to operate very differently in civil proceedings and criminal proceedings. The proper application of the tracing rules in criminal proceedings is then illustrated using the facts of William v R [2013] EWCA Crim 1262.

Because evidential uncertainties must be resolved in favour of the accused person in criminal proceedings, the tracing rules – properly applied – limit the range of situations in which the Prosecution can successfully trace criminal proceeds through fungible mixtures.

This paper may be useful to law enforcement, those involved in prosecuting or defending money laundering cases and regulated persons assessing their money laundering risks and disclosure obligations.

A successful prosecution for a criminal offence requires a prosecuting authority to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant possessed the requisite mens rea, or mental state, and that at that time he also committed the actus reus of the offence, that is to say those elements of the crime apart from the mental element. One of the most common features of the actus reus of money‐laundering offences across different legal jurisdictions is that the prosecution usually has to prove, inter alia, that the property which was the subject of the transaction was, as a matter of fact, the proceeds of crime. Some variations will however occur, in that in certain jurisdictions there may be a requirement to prove that the property is the proceeds of a particular predicate offence; in others it may be sufficient to prove that the property is derived from any form of criminal conduct. This paper examines the ways in which law enforcement authorities have attempted to prove this clement of a laundering offence, and concludes by making some suggestions for alleviating the difficulties inherent in doing so. Given that there have been relatively few convictions for money laundering in the UK, many of the examples are drawn from other jurisdictions, some of which have much greater experience of such prosecutions. Occasional examples are also drawn from civil forfeiture cases. While the standard of proof in such cases is that applicable in civil proceedings rather than the criminal standard applicable in money‐laundering prosecutions, such cases may nevertheless be useful so as to see the type of evidence adduced before the courts in order to prove that property is the proceeds of crime.

In 1996 the Irish legislature (the Oireacthas) enacted radical legislation as part of a new initiative to deal with organised crime, and with it a specialist agency, called the Criminal Assets Bureau, to enforce the new provisions. In proposing the new measures the Minister for Finance said:

The paper is intended to illustrate the reasons why a legislature contemplating the enactment of a set of comprehensive asset forfeiture statutes to enhance the State's ability to recover the proceeds of crime should include provisions relating to in rem civil forfeiture.

The paper reviews the law‐enforcement situations in which civil forfeiture statutes are essential to the State's ability to recover the proceeds of crime.

The paper concludes that in personam criminal forfeiture statutes, which authorize a court to impose forfeiture as an element of the defendant's sentence in a criminal case, are inadequate, by themselves, to allow the State to recover criminal proceeds, and that in rem civil forfeiture provisions must be included in a legislative scheme for it to be fully effective.

The paper is intended to be of practical value and national legislatures in countries attempting to modernize the law‐enforcement tolls available to them to recover criminal proceeds both domestically and in the global economy.

The paper outlines the reasons why a purely in personam asset forfeiture system that relies on a criminal conviction for the recovery of criminal proceeds in inadequate, and why governments implementing asset forfeiture schemes should make civil in rem forfeiture part of the legislative program.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Vietnamese laws and practices concerning the confiscation of proceeds of crime, especially in view of Vietnam’s obligations to meet the international standards on money laundering and terrorist financing, set by the Financial Action Task Force and relevant international conventions that Vietnam ratified. To limit the scope of this paper, the analysis focuses on the confiscation of proceeds of domestic crimes that do not require international legal assistance. This paper concludes with recommendations for improving the legal framework on criminal asset recovery in Vietnam.

This is a doctrinal study that considers the applicable legal framework. This study is supported by brief case studies of major cases involving the confiscation of proceeds of crime.

Vietnam has a functioning asset confiscation regime but gaps in the law, lack of financial investigation expertise and lack of focused investigative attention on asset preservation and confiscation are hampering its effectiveness. The key gaps can easily be closed with appropriate amendments to the law. These reforms should be combined with a dedicated skills development program to produce sufficient number of financial investigation experts and criminal asset management experts to support the regime. The training should extend to judicial officers to ensure an appropriate understanding of the asset confiscation law. Reforms such as these should follow on a comprehensive review of Vietnam’s law and practices relating to the confiscation and forfeiture of criminal assets. This review should extend to assets linked to the financing of terrorism and proliferation to ensure that Vietnam has a comprehensive regime to deal with criminal assets.

This paper draws on publicly available information regarding the confiscation of proceeds of crime in Vietnam. Little data is available on asset confiscation and that prevents an in-depth assessment of the regime.

This paper highlights gaps in the current asset confiscation regime and proposes reforms and approaches that will ensure a more effective asset confiscation regime for Vietnam.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the contentious issue whether lawyers become launderers when they accept dirty money as legal fees. Lawyers represent criminal defendants who may wish to pay for their legal fees with proceeds of their criminal activities. The paper analyses the legal position of Namibia and Zimbabwe on such tainted fees and proceeds to compare with the different position taken by the United States.

The paper adopts a desk research methodology with reliance on various sources such as statutory laws, case laws, books, journal articles and the internet. Its scope is limited to issue and content analysis relating to the use of dirty money as legal fees.

The paper shows that lawyers become launderers when they accept dirty money as legal fees with knowledge or suspicion of its origins. It concludes that the prohibition of dirty money as legal fees is important in the fight against economic crime in Namibia and Zimbabwe. Even though it is decriminalised in the USA, the continuous prosecution of lawyers for tainted fees shows that state authorities are aware of the dangers of tainted legal fees.

This paper adds to the few available literature on dirty money and legal fees. It provides sound reasons why prohibition of tainted attorneys’ fees adds muscle to the fight against economic crime. No prior literature is available on tainted legal fees in Namibia and Zimbabwe specifically.

To examine the criminal laws and regulations on money laundering control in China and Hong Kong and to call for legal and institutional reforms in China.

This paper provides a comparative analysis and critically reviews the laws and regulations on money laundering control in China and Hong Kong.

China has shown a firm determination to combat money laundering since 2002. Reforms on Article 191 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China (1997) and the institutional framework are called for to comply with the international standards of the FATF recommendations, the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000) and the UN Convention against Corruption (2003) to control money laundering.

This paper highlights the problems and proposes both legal and institutional reforms on money laundering control in China.

This paper initiates the analytical research on the legal and institutional problems of money laundering control in China which had not been adequately explored.