The regional seminar for Asia-Pacific, organised by the Basel Institute on Governance with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) of Indonesia, the ADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia-Pacific, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and with the support of the German Development Cooperation (GTZ) and the US Department of State, was held in Bali, Indonesia, on 5-7 September 2007.
The seminar brought together 180 policy makers and practitioners from over 35 countries from Asia-Pacific, Africa, Europe and the Americas. It was conceived as a forum for capacity building, awareness raising and policy dialogue on the implementation of new international standards for mutual legal assistance and the repatriation of assets stolen through bribery, embezzlement and other forms of corruption. To further this goal, the seminar featured a number of plenary sessions to discuss key challenges and the legal and institutional basis for successfully enforcing anti-corruption laws and succeeding in cooperation across borders in prosecuting international bribery cases and repatriating the stolen funds. These sessions addressed formal and informal procedures to obtain international legal assistance; presented techniques for tracing, freezing, confiscating and repatriating of stolen assets; and discussed practices and procedures for seizure, confiscation and repatriation in key financial centres of Asia and the OECD region.
To strengthen the practical understanding and technical capacities of participants, the seminar further proposed three working groups to discuss past cases of asset recovery to Nigeria (Abacha case), Peru (Montesinos case) and the Philippines (Marcos case). During these case studies, practitioners that were personally involved in bringing these cases to a successful closure discussed with the participants the applicability to these particular cases of the instruments presented during the plenary sessions. Finally, the closing morning allowed experts from the major concerned stakeholder groups to analyse the findings of the seminar and discuss conclusions that could be drawn with regard the needs and priorities for the Asia-Pacific region to implement the mutual legal assistance and asset recovery provisions of UNCAC.
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