Guernsey has expanded its anti-money laundering arsenal by
introducing a summary civil forfeiture procedure along similar
lines to Jersey's. The summary procedure will apply where
assets in a Bailiwick bank account have been the subject of
"no consent" for at least a year.
There is already a civil forfeiture law in Guernsey, namely The
Forfeiture of Money etc in Civil Proceedings Law, 2007
(the Forfeiture Law). As a reminder, key
features of the Forfeiture Law regime are that:
- it provides for non-conviction based remedies, which means the
powers may be triggered without a criminal conviction having been
obtained
- the process is a civil one, meaning that the facts need to be
proved to the lower civil standard of "on the balance of
probabilities", rather than to the criminal standard of
"beyond reasonable doubt"
