Entry into force of the law amending the powers of the National Agency for the Management of Seized Assets (ANABI)

The reform was implemented by adopting

The law transposing the Directive (EU) 2019/1153 - Government Ordinance (G.O.) no. 9/2021 on laying down rules facilitating the use of financial information and financial analysis for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of certain criminal offences. According to art. 3 para. (3) of the Government Ordinance, ANABI (which is designated as Asset Recovery Office) was designated as one of the competent authorities to have direct access to the information held in centralized bank account registries to prevent, detect, or investigate a specific serious criminal offense or supporting a specific criminal investigation, including the identification, tracing and freezing of assets.
The law on the extension of ANABI’s institutional mandate - Law for amending and supplementing Law no. 318/2015 for the establishment, organization and functioning of the National Agency for the Administration of Unavailable Goods and for the amendment and completion of some normative acts, as well as for the amendment and completion of Law no. 135/2010 on the Code of Criminal Procedure

The amendments to the Law no. 318/2015 provide the following:

expanding the legal mandate for managing seized assets to stocks of merchandise, whose cumulative value exceeds, at the moment of disposing of the precautionary measure, the equivalent in lei of the amount of 300.000 Euro;
regulating the possibility of request from the prosecutor or judge to authorize the transfer, in the unique bank account, amounts of money seized in other accounts, following the approval of the prosecutor or court;
regulating the technical and logistical support the Agency shall receive in fulfilling the administration attribution.

Also, the amendments to Law no. 318/2015 include an entire section regulating the procedures for:

evaluating seized assets;
selling seized assets in public auctions.

This is linked with the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code that expand the modalities and cases that allow the selling of seized assets.

In addition, the law regulates the establishment of the National Mechanism to Support Crime Prevention, as the institutional and financial framework through which the allocation of resources is ensured to implement activities and projects whose objectives are legal education, crime prevention, assistance, and protection of victims of crimes, as well as strengthening the administrative capacity, including logistics, of institutions empowered to identify, administer or capitalize on seized assets.

Moreover, the law identifies solutions for the adequate compensation of victims of crimes, including the operationalization of an emergency fund, and the introduction of a modern and fast system that allows the provision of support in 72 hours (payment system through vouchers).

Additional information:

Additional media:

Reference: C14 - R5 in the RO Recovery and Resilience Plan
Project locations: Romania

Project website: https://anabi.just.ro/...