My thesis is this: there has been a trend at an EU level in recent years (really kick started by 9/11) but which has gathered pace, to encourage the sharing of information for the purposes of combating fraud and serious crime.

The appellant was serving a sentence in the Czech Republic, having been surrendered pursuant to a European arrest warrant.

One of the many innovations of the Extradition Act 2003 (‘EA 2003’) was the removal of a number of bars to extradition.

It was back in 1998 that Jack Straw, the then Home Secretary, asked the Law Commission to examine the law on fraud and whether a general offence of fraud would be an improvement to the body of criminal law.

Under the UK legislative scheme different instruments for the restraint and recovery of the proceeds of crime are available at different stages of the criminal proceedings.