Asset Recovery

A recent European Commission report estimates that “stolen African assets equivalent to more than half of the continent’s external debt are held in foreign bank accounts.” Some African leaders have begun to focus on the repatriation of these looted African assets as an important element of anti-corruption efforts, following the precedent set by the Holocaust Claims Commission in recovering assets stolen from Jewish people by the Nazi regime. Asset recovery is a difficult task and is fraught with the complicity of the banks involved, the navigation of a costly international legal labyrinth and the fact that those implicated in public looting are usually those with the most power and influence.

This case study is arranged in five sections. The first section highlights the problem of the looting of African assets through a selection of articles relating to various corrupt individuals around the continent. The second section documents the international communities’ response to asset recovery through relevant sections of anti-corruption declarations and conventions, including the UN Convention against Corruption and the AU Convention on Combating and Preventing Corruption. The third section is a selection of academic and media commentaries on asset repatriation in general and the conventions in particular.

The fourth and fifth sections document the differing fortunes of two African states that have attempted much publicized asset recovery campaigns. Nigeria achieved a qualified success, recovering a significant amount of money but not without having to make a somewhat unsatisfactory deal. Kenya, on the other hand, made significant progress before an apparent implosion of political will left the asset recovery campaign floundering. In both case studies the documents outline the situations and mechanisms that have lead to such vast looting; the political contexts in which asset recovery has occurred; and the methods employed by the governments to try and recover these funds.

As the experiences of Kenya and Nigeria show it seems that states embarking on asset recovery campaigns have to walk a delicate line between justice and monetary restitution. Having tracked down looted funds, states struggle to prosecute those involved and repatriate the money, getting bogged down instead in legal battles between the ‘owners’ of the money, or the international banks that hold the money, or both. States that seek recourse through their courts, where the judiciary is often compromised  (“Why hire a lawyer when you can buy a judge?” as the Kenyan saying goes) are doomed to see their asset recovery cases flounder as those implicated slow prosecutions to a standstill through their own power and influence. The challenge for external actors is thus to assist states in their repatriation efforts to help close the gap between justice and recovery of funds.

This case study was produced by Daniel Scher, Research Intern, ISS Corruption and Governance Programme