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Dayman, Sara --- "Is the Patient Expected to Live? UK Civil Forfeiture in Operation" [2009] ELECD 224; in Young, N.M. Simon (ed), "Civil Forfeiture of Criminal Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Civil Forfeiture of Criminal Property

Editor(s): Young, N.M. Simon

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847208262

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Is the Patient Expected to Live? UK Civil Forfeiture in Operation

Author(s): Dayman, Sara

Number of pages: 23

Extract:

8. Is the patient expected to live? UK
civil forfeiture in operation
Sara Dayman*

INTRODUCTION
The commencement in 2003 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (hereinafter
POCA 2002) introduced to the United Kingdom (UK) the concept of civil
recovery proceedings against assets derived from the profits of crime. Home
Office estimates, based on data supplied by law enforcement bodies,
suggested in 1999­2000, that there were `some £440 million of criminal assets
that could be targeted by civil forfeiture across 400 individual cases'.1
In order to target the aforesaid £440 million of criminal assets a budget of
some £15 million was granted in March 2003 to the newly formed Assets
Recovery Agency (hereinafter ARA), the government department established
to carry out such civil recovery proceedings. By September 2004 the ARA
Resource Accounts 2003­042 made it clear that the cost and impact of pioneer-
ing the new legislation had been underestimated. The ARA's opening opera-
tional and financial plans had been based on the operational experience of HM
Customs and Excise (now HM Revenue and Customs) in criminal asset forfei-
ture work. Those assumptions failed to reflect the mix, complexity (both in
terms of case weight and the level of legal challenge) or length of civil recov-
ery cases being handled by the ARA. Nor did they reflect the costs actually


* The views expressed herein are the author's personally and do not represent
the views of BDO Stoy Hayward LLP.
1 See Cabinet Office (June 2000), ...