Recovery of stolen assets

Transparency International defines asset recovery as “the legal process through which a country, government and/or its citizens recover from another jurisdiction the resources and other assets that were stolen through corruption”.

Over the last two decades, governments have dedicated growing attention to preventing the theft of public assets and their concealment abroad, as well as to enhancing cooperation on asset recovery processes. Notwithstanding these efforts, however, the amount of assets identified and repatriated globally is extremely low. Asset recovery is considered a highly complex and challenging process, and individual cases can take up to 5-10 years to resolve. Typically involving multiple jurisdictions including tax havens, asset recovery cases heavily depend on volatile political will and are often burdened by lack of capacity and resources.