The article analyses Regulation (EU) 2023/1543 on electronic evidence, which introduces European Preservation and Production Orders (EPOC-PR/EPOC) as new mutual recognition instruments. It focuses on Article 32, which allows issuing authorities to freely choose between the Regulation and alternative legal bases, including non-EU frameworks, thereby departing from the traditional precedence of Union law in judicial cooperation. The author outlines advantages of this flexible approach but highlights legal and practical concerns, including its consistency with Art. 82(1) TFEU, possible disincentives for using judicial channels, cost reimbursement disparities, and implications for digital communication via the new JUDEX system.

The relationship between the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in the context of anti-corruption efforts represents a multi-dimensional and strategic partnership that responds to the complexity of global corruption challenges. This article explores the collaboration between the EU and UNODC, which has recently picked up speed. The article emphasises the shared goals of combating corruption globally, strengthening rule-of-law frameworks, and creating multileveled synergies in response to emerging global contests. It also examines specific milestones, such as the EU-UNODC Anti-Corruption Dialogue and the implications of recent geopolitical shifts, including some State actors’ reduced involvement in international anti-corruption initiatives. The author concludes that multilateral collaboration among regional and international actors, involving the participation of relevant national, local, and sectoral stakeholders can provide a robust tool for combating adaptive corruption – one that is both apt and thorough.

Mutual recognition of judicial decisions and mutual trust are considered one of the cornerstones of the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. In recent years, the ECJ has rendered numerous decisions dealing with the scope of these principles and further elaborating the idea that EU Member States must recognise certain judicial decisions issued by another EU Member State (e.g., European arrest warrants) on the same footing as they trust each other to comply with EU fundamental rights. In 2022 already, the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) urged EU Member States to consider specific categories of extradition decisions to be binding in all Member States and to recognise such decisions by means of mutual recognition. The idea is to avoid restrictions on free movement that would arise if a person sought by an INTERPOL Red Notice had successfully defended extradition in one Member State but was at risk of (once … Read more

Cross-border, asset-related crime exploits a persistent enforcement gap in Germany’s confiscation regime. Existing tools — conviction-based forfeiture under §§ 73 ff. German Criminal Code (StGB) and the narrowly framed conviction-independent procedure of § 76a StGB — fail whenever offenders abscond, die, or hide behind complex offshore structures. This article addresses two research questions: (1) Can a non-conviction-based confiscation (NCBC) mechanism close this gap effectively? (2) Is such a mechanism compatible with the property guarantee of Art. 14 Basic Law and the fair-trial safeguards of Art. 6 European Convention on Human Rights?
Building on Directive (EU) 2024/1260 on asset recovery; comparative practice in Switzerland (SRVG 2015), Italy (confisca di prevenzione), and the United Kingdom (Proceeds of Crime Act 2002); and German constitutional jurisprudence, the author proposes a Vermögenseinziehungsgesetz (VEG, Asset Confiscation Act). The VEG is conceived as an in rem civil procedure before specialised chambers: the public prosecutor must demonstrate the … Read more

In April 2024, the European Union’s Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (PAR) entered into force. In further efforts to ensure a transparent, safe, predictable and trustworthy online environment within the EU — particularly in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal — the Regulation aims to respond to the dangers and misuse of microtargeting, a sophisticated data-based method of online manipulation. Despite PAR’s lofty aspirations, the nature and functions of online manipulation are fraught with more conceptual and regulatory difficulties than it appears to acknowledge or resolve. First, PAR’s reliance on outmoded data protection principles and their largely unforeseeable effects on data disposition and aggregation complicate the problem of online user consent. Second, without adopting a broader “supervisory perspective” for identifying harmful microtargeting and interest misalignment, PAR risks endorsing only transparency without accountability. Third, a noticeable regulatory loophole risks prompting a surge in unregulated political advertising … Read more