Submission on the Asset Recovery Strategy

In April 2020, organisations in the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition input to the Home Office’s Asset Recovery strategy. Asset recovery is an opportunity not just for denying corrupt actors their gains but also for raising the profile of the fight against corruption and the damage it causes.

We recommend that the UK Government:

• Ensures the strategy is an opportunity for embedding the Global Forum for Asset Recovery principles across all types of returned assets.

• Ensures that there is some formal process of signing off on returns that includes checking that the principles have been adhered to.

• Commits to ensuring that returned money is spent on social projects that benefit the poorest, who are often those most harmed by corruption, and that there is independent post-return monitoring.

• Ensures civil society engagement is meaningful and considered at an early stage to ensure it can be effective.

• Embeds greater transparency in the asset recovery and return process, in particular by ensuring court hearings and documents relation to corruption are in the public domain and full statements about assets to be returned are made well in advance of the return.

• Commits to learning from best practice in asset return.

• Disaggregates asset return data so that annual reporting on assets returned in relation to corruption can be done.