Colin King and Clive Walker (Eds.), Dirty assets
| Author | Costantino Grasso |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865816678354 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Colin King and Clive Walker (Eds.), Dirty assets. Ashgate: Farnham, 2014; xvi + 355 pp. ISBN
9781409462538, £34.99 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Costantino Grasso, University of East London,UK
As the Panama Papers scandal has recently demonstrated, financial crime represents an
extremely topical area of law. After the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, which
resulted in the instigation of a financial war on terrorism, and the financial crisis of 2008,
which caused major threats to the functioning of global financial markets, economic
crime has become an incredibly important area of law at both the domestic and inter-
national level. Since the introduction of the first anti-money laundering initiative, several
types of financial crime offences have gained supranational recognition. The collapses of
Enron and WorldCom have demonstrated the potential harmfulness of financial frauds.
In 2004, in the preamble of the United Nation Convention against Corruption, the
Secretary General defined this criminal phenomenon as ‘insidious plague that has a
wide range of corrosive effects on societies’. Insider trading has also become a significant
problem to the global financial services sector. Finally, the transformation of crime in
the information age has made possible the simultaneous victimisation of thousands of
people all over the planet with a single click.
Within such a scenario, a growing awareness has been raised about the necessity of
interrupting the massive illicit financial flows that exist at both domestic and trans-
national level. In fact, it is widely recognised that the success of criminal organisations
is based on their capability for cleaning ill-gotten gains through corrupt or inadequate
financial systems. Such an issue represents a global problem that not only threatens
security but also endangers the efficiency and stability of financial systems, thus affecting
national economies in an adverse way.
Dirty Assets is a remarkable collection of scientific contributions, which follow the
common thread of examining how criminal activities might be countered by putting a
stop to illicit financial flows. The book is structured in three parts.
In the first one, which deals with introductory matters, Colin King and Clive Walker
provide a clear illustration of what the emerging issues in the regulation of criminal
assets recovery are, investigating, inter alia, the rationales behind the imposition of legal
measures adopted in order to confiscate illicit assets.
The second part, which includes nine chapters, is devoted to an analysis of selected
responses to this criminal phenomenon at both transnational and domestic level. In
particular, two chapters deal with this issue at the supranational level: In chapter 2,
Matthias J Borgers offers an overview of the European Union framework on confisca-
tion of proceeds of crime; whilst in chapter 10, Indira Carr and Robert Jago examine the
aspect of asset recovery under the United Nation Convention against Corruption.
As regards the domestic level, the book includes the analysis of responses adopted
within selected jurisdictions. Specifically, two chapters cover the jurisdiction of
England and Wales: Chapter 3, in which Karen Bullock and Stuart Lister discuss the
development and operation of the regime of post-conviction confiscation of assets; and
chapter 9, where Jackie Harvey considers the adoption of the Proceeds of Crime Act
2002 (POCA) in the United Kingdom from a critical point of view. In chapter 4, Daniele
Piva illustrates the anti-Mafia forfeiture system as recently implemented in Italy. Such a
626 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 50(4)
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