Policy Brief 16: Enforcing foreign non-conviction based forfeiture orders

Basel Institute on Governance

FATF standards and asset recovery practice in Latin America and financial centres

This Policy Brief analyses emerging international standards aimed at addressing recurring challenges in judicial practice with regard to the enforcement of non-conviction based forfeiture orders issued by foreign states. It focuses in particular on the historical absence of a binding obligation on requested states to cooperate in such cases and, where cooperation is available, on the structural tension between direct and indirect enforcement models.

This Policy Brief can be read alongside Case Study 13: “The Beauty Queen case: non-conviction based forfeiture across borders. Lessons learned from Colombia–Guernsey cooperation.”

About this Policy Brief

This publication is part of the Basel Institute on Governance Policy Brief series ISSN 2624-9669. It is a Diamond Open Access publication, also hosted on the Basel University Library’s open publishing platform eterna as part of our Basel Institute on Governance Policy Brief Journal, with DOI: 10.12685/bigpb.16.1-11.

You may freely share or republish it under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

It is a publication of the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) at the Basel Institute on Governance. ICAR receives core funding from the Governments of Jersey, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and the UK.

Disclaimer: This Policy Brief is intended for general informational purposes and does not constitute and/or substitute legal or other professional advice. The contents are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Basel Institute on Governance, its donors and partners, or the University of Basel.

Published

03/2026 (7 months ago)

Author

Oscar Solorzano

Citation

Solórzano, Oscar. 2026. 'Enforcing foreign non-conviction based forfeiture orders: FATF standards and asset recovery practice in Latin America and financial centres.' Policy Brief 16, Basel Institute on Governance. Available at: [baselgovernance.org/publications/pb-16](https://baselgovernance.org/publications/pb-16).

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