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I. Introduction: Context of the Evaluation of Regulation 883/2013 In 1999, the Commission established the European Anti-Fraud Office – OLAF – to give a deterrent answer to fraud, corruption, and other illegal activities detrimental to the financial interests of the Union.1 OLAF’s primary instrument to provide such deterrence is its ability to conduct administrative investigations in the Union’s institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies (during internal investigations) and in the Member States (during external investigations).2 Initially OLAF conducted its investigations under the overarching framework of Regulations 1073/1999 and 1074/1999: the former covered the EC; the latter covered Euratom.3 After a number...

Undoubtedly, the fight against corruption is no easy job, mainly because of the very secretive nature of such an offence that, at times, makes it next to impossible to detect, especially when hardly anyone files a report with the law enforcement authorities. Hence, new methods need to be identified and devised to fight corruption at a national level and in the European Union whilst at the same time safeguarding human rights, especially the right to a fair and public trial as well as the right to privacy. This is indeed an arduous task for all the public authorities involved in...

Current technology enables drug traffickers and other criminals to live like digital nomads and direct global operations from any location in the world. That said, this surge of technology also provides law enforcement with new tools. Large datasets allow us to change the way we …

Dear Readers, The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), of which I have been President since 2012, was established in 1999 as the anti-corruption monitoring body of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe acted as a pioneer when it made fighting corruption one of its priorities for international cooperation nearly 30 years ago. Today, GRECO’s 48-country membership comprises the Council of Europe member states as well as the United States of America and Kazakhstan. Being a member of GRECO is a commitment to the proactive fight against corruption and other forms of misuse of power. Over the years,…

Dear Readers, Recital 5 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2020/2092 on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget serves as a reminder that the EU’s legal structure is based on the fundamental premise that “each Member State shares with all the other Member States, and recognizes that they share with it, a set of common values on which the Union is founded, as stated in Article 2 TEU.” This commitment to complying with the Treaties, including the fundamental principles of the rule of law, justifies mutual trust between the Member States. Each and every Member State…

The article reflects on the future of financial criminal law investigations of the EU. It departs from the experts’ studies conducted which have developed the Corpus Juris Model, and recalls the historic development of the subsequent institutional debate up to the Lisbon Reform Treaty. The …

The article follows up the efforts undertaken by the EU Commission together with the Council of the European Union to set up the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). Preparing the EPPO to become operational by 2020 was a top political priority during the Bulgarian Council …

It has been estimated that roughly 1.6 trillion USD in criminal proceeds are laundered through the international financial system each year.1 To put this in perspective, this sum is more than the combined GDPs of Switzerland, Portugal, Romania, Belarus, and Austria in 2011. To enjoy this unnerving amount of illicit assets, criminals are forced to launder these funds through legitimate international financial channels in an attempt to disguise their illegitimate origins. Consequently, if an investigator knows how and where to look, there is always a connection that links a criminal’s assets to his or her crimes – and if sufficient...

On 21 December 2023, the CJEU delivered its first judgment in response to the preliminary reference concerning the extent of judicial review in the context of the EPPO’s cross-border investigations. The questions referred to the CJEU aimed to shed light on two crucial aspects of …

This article seeks to demonstrate the practical challenges of enforcing financial penalties EU-wide. The instrument allowing such enforcement – Council Framework Decision 2005/214/JHA of 24 February 2005 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to financial penalties – has been transposed in almost …