The article analyses the first question referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling in a case concerning the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). It involves the interpretation of a key provision regarding the investigations of this new office, i.e. Art. 31 of Council Regulation EU 2017/1939. This provision governs investigative measures that need to be undertaken in a Member State other than the Member State of the handling European Delegated Prosecutor. In the case at issue, the Oberlandesgericht Wien, Austria is seeking clarification as to the extent of judicial review if it comes to cross-border investigations within this regime. The author argues that the case raises a number of key issues for the functioning of the EPPO regarding its structure and operation, not to mention the EPPO’s relevance in the creation of a common area of justice in the European Union.

For the past year – since the Russian invasion of Ukraine – there has been a great deal of interest in the seizure and forfeiture of the assets of the Russian oligarchs who have become subject to international economic sanctions. Different countries have taken different approaches: Some have merely been freezing the assets of sanctioned persons based on statutory authority to restrain their movement. Others have found ways to confiscate – or permanently take title to – these assets, invoking a variety of legal theories and instruments to do so.
In the United States, the approach has been to obtain a seizure warrant based on probable cause to believe that a yacht, airplane, or other asset of a sanctioned Russian individual or entity is subject to forfeiture because of its nexus to a criminal offence; then to seek the assistance of the courts in the jurisdiction where the asset is located … Read more

The rules on the exercise of competence by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office have been discussed by several authors. It has been put forward that the way in which material competence is regulated is highly complex; as is the division of competences between the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and national authorities. In addition to jeopardising legal certainty, this poses a major challenge to the practical application of the law. Such challenges recently came to light in a case of positive conflict of competence involving the Spanish Prosecutor’s Office and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. This article recapitulates the case and argues that while the conflict has been temporarily resolved, the parties’ statements indicate that its roots go deeper than flawed EU regulation, testing the limits of the principle of the primacy of EU law.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) sought to extend the guarantees for criminal procedure enshrined in Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to administrative offences which are criminal in nature when it established the Engel criteria. It aimed to prevent that the states circumvent criminal procedure safeguards by simply labelling such offences as administrative. However, the ECtHR went back on this initial approach in subsequent judgments, denying that sanctions in disciplinary proceedings against judges fall under the criminal limb of Art. 6 ECHR. Hence, further exploration is required to clear the blurring lines between administrative and criminal sanctions with the aim of establishing which procedural safeguards are applicable.
This article outlines and reflects on the reasons set out in ECtHR case law for no longer considering disciplinary sanctions against judges as “criminal in nature.” It is argued that the ECtHR’s current approach leaves it unclear which … Read more

Cooperation between authorities conducting administrative investigations and those conducting criminal investigations at both the EU and Member State levels is essential to ensure a high level of protection in view of the EU's financial interests. However, the legal framework governing the role and competences of individual authorities at the EU level seems much clearer than the corresponding national legal frameworks of the Member States. Indeed, at the Member State level, the legal frameworks for conducting investigations, whether administrative or criminal, significantly differ from Member State to Member State. Likewise, there is no clear legal framework at the EU level that defines and sets standards regarding the mandatory control mechanisms that must be established at the level of the entire system for the protection of the EU’s financial interests in the Member States. This also applies in relation to the players that need to be involved in the protection of the … Read more

The admissibility of evidence from other proceedings in criminal proceedings is a challenge for the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure. This is due to the fact that existing provisions first deal with the admissibility of evidence obtained according to the rules of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure but hardly regulate the admissibility of evidence collected in accordance with other procedural rules. This raises the question of whether evidence from administrative proceedings can be used in criminal proceedings. In this context, restrictions on the use of evi-dence could result from the concept of evidence in the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure, from the prohibitions on the use of evidence in administrative and criminal proceedings, from fundamental rights, and from regulations on the transfer of evidence. This article examines different scenarios and analyses the legal situation in Austria on how administrative evidence is dealt with in criminal proceedings.