Analysis

What does a declassified British security service's report have to do with the South African government's utter lack of political will to pursue corruption proceeds? Many onlookers are saying it is indicative of an endemic problem experienced by those who try to recover assets on behalf of the country. Meanwhile, billions of dollars in potential restitution hang in the balance.

Investigating corruption? Get ready to be investigated yourself.

After surviving an early attempt to blunt the legislation, the soon-to-be-released European Order for the Preservation of Assets and its sister law, the European Order for the Disclosure of Assets, could be effective in the cross-border fight to take back assets, if they are enacted.

The sensational Central Florida case in which a young mother, Casey Anthony, is accused of killing her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, is transfixing the world with bulletins not seen since the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995. Anthony faces the death penalty if the six-person jury in Clearwater convicts her of the first-degree murder of which she is charged.

A pair of US politicians are battling over the recent NOAA forfeiture funds scandal, and the agency's access to these funds hangs in the balance. Senator Scott Brown's "Asset Forfeiture^* Responsibility Act of 2011" seeks to remove regulation and forfeiture authority from the embattled agency, while Senator John Kerry's  "Fisheries Fee Fairness Act of 2011" proposes to deal with the specific harms done by federal fisheries law enforcement.

The following is an excerpt from International Asset Tracing in Insolvency^* (Oxford University Press), edited by IAAR Advisory Board member Felicity Toube QC. Toube QC will be a speaker at IAAR's 2011 Cross-Border Asset Tracing and Recovery Conference at the Waldorf Hilton in London, June 12-14.

The classic definition of a sham is to be found in the judgment of Diplock L.J in Snook v London & W Riding Invs Ltd [1967] 2 QB 786 at 802):