Emily Thornberry – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2014-04-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with which countries the UK has asset sharing agreements for the purposes of freezing, confiscating and repatriating the proceeds of crime; and how many such agreements have been reached since 2010-11.

Karen Bradley

he UK is party to a number of multilateral international agreements that
contain asset recovery and asset sharing provisions. These include the Council
of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the
Proceeds from Crime, the UN Convention Against Corruption and the UN Convention
Against Transnational Organised Crime. The UK does not require a formal
international agreement to be able to cooperate with another country in respect
of freezing, confiscating and sharing or repatriating the proceeds of crime but
does have 37 bilateral mutual legal assistance agreements with other countries
including such provisions. These are –

1. Algeria
2. Antigua and Barbuda
3. Argentina
4. Australia
5. Bahamas
6. Bahrain
7. Barbados
8. Brazil
9. Canada
10. Chile
11. Colombia
12. Ecuador
13. Grenada
14. Guyana
15. Hong Kong SAR
16. India
17. Ireland
18. Italy
19. Jordan
20. Libya
21. Malaysia
22. Mexico
23. Netherlands
24. Nigeria
25. Panama
26. Paraguay
27. Philippines
28. Romania
29. Saudi Arabia
30. Spain
31. Sweden
32. Thailand
33. UAE
34. Ukraine
35. Uruguay
36. USA
37. Vietnam

The agreements with Jordan and Malaysia have been concluded since 2010.

There are a further six bilateral agreements limited to the issue of asset
sharing. These are –

1. Canada
2. Jersey
3. Hong Kong SAR
4. Ireland
5. Jamaica
6. Netherlands

These were all concluded prior to 2010.