Lobster Baron's Millions Caught In The Net

A recent judgment¹ of the Royal Court casts light on the Island's conviction-based confiscation regime at a time when the States of Jersey is busy sharpening the claws of Jersey's investigatory and prosecutorial authorities in relation to its civil, non-conviction based, asset forfeiture framework.

The judgment contains an interesting tale of a cross-border, multi-million dollar criminal conspiracy involving South African rock lobster, Patagonian toothfish, bribery and smuggling. Perhaps regrettably then, this author's focus is the slightly more prosaic issue of what constitutes "realisable property" for the purposes of the domestic proceeds of crime legislation.²

The judgment highlights some of the difficulties facing the Jersey Court when seeking to balance the interests of an overseas jurisdiction in safeguarding and recovering the proceeds of crime and the interests of persons holding property not to have such property frozen without good cause.