Workshop shares experience in improving asset recovery capacity

This is the final event in a series of three regional workshops on anti-corruption held in 2024 within the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) launched by the UN in 2022. It aimed to discuss issues related to asset recovery under the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), and share experience from countries and international organisations in institutionalising and implementing relevant legal provisions.

Addressing the event, Deputy Inspector General Duong Quoc Huy highlighted the significance of workshop, noting that GIV and other Vietnamese agencies are continuing to conduct research to advise on perfecting the mechanism and policies on asset recovery, thus contributing to completing the country’s mechanism for controlling assets and incomes.

Annika Wythes, Director of the Anti-Corruption Hub for Southeast Asia under the UNODC, highlighted her agency’s mission, noting that it contributes to global peace, security, and human development, and makes the world safer from drugs, crime, corruption, and terrorism through cooperation, promoting justice, and building sustainable societies.

The issue of asset recovery is addressed in Chapter V of the UNCAC, supporting global efforts to combat corruption by preventing the transfer of money and assets derived from criminal activities, and also promotes the return of stolen assets to the state and citizens.

International delegates provided an overview of commitments and obligations related to asset recovery and return, through preventing and detecting the transfer or movement of assets, directly recovering assets. It also fostered international cooperation in the confiscation, return, and handling of seized assets in accordance with the UNCAC.

They focused their discussion on effective legal mechanisms that allow for the identification, tracing, freezing, and confiscation of assets through criminal or civil procedures for crimes and assets derived from illegal activities, as outlined in the UNCAC.

Methods for preventing and detecting the transfer or movement of assets acquired through criminal activities, as well as enhancing international cooperation in asset recovery and return, including best practices for building the capacity of authorised authorities, were also put on the table.

Earlier, workshops on foreign bribery and public procurement took place in October in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, under the joint support of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).