European Confiscation Forum

The European Confiscation Forum (ECF) is a bi-annual event gathering academic experts, policy makers and practitioners working with confiscation law. The forum is a collaborative effort by BI Norwegian Business School (Norway), University of Heidelberg (Germany) and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland).

In Europe, confiscation law has been rapidly developing and expanding over the last decade. While ostensibly being an important means for recovering criminally obtained wealth, little is known about how effective these mechanisms truly are for targeting illicit wealth. In addition, confiscation measures can be far-reaching, infringing on the respondent’s rights with regard to both property and procedural safeguards.

Balancing the interests of the state with those of the individual is therefore particularly important in this field. The purpose of this gathering is to facilitate discussing new research findings, identify obstacles to effective implementation, exchange of best practices and sharing of information. An overarching ambition of the Forum is to contribute to a knowledge based criminal policy on confiscation in Europe.