CONFIDENTIAL
XCC(93)55
12
Therefore, the Finance Committee's approval for the transfer of the appropriate amount of money to the US Government will only be sought after the court ruling on the application is delivered and provided it upholds the confiscation of the assets in Hong Kong.
Future Cases
13
Asset confiscation is invariably a time-consuming process, and a considerable administrative effort is involved in processing the court orders and other confiscation procedures. A major contribution, in terms of legal, accounting and law enforcement agents' staff time, is required on the part of the requested Party in each confiscation. It is therefore appropriate for a threshold value to be set, and any request from overseas jurisdictions for asset sharing involving confiscated assets below the threshold value should be declined.
14
It is proposed to set the threshold at HK$10 million and to have requests for asset sharing in cases where confiscated assets amount to more than this amount examined on a case-by-case basis by a Committee on Asset Sharing chaired by the Secretary for Security, or his representative, and attended by the Attorney General, the Commissioner for Narcotics, the Secretary for the Treasury, the Commissioner of Police, the Commissioner of Customs and Excise, and the Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, or their representatives.
15
In the light of operational experience so far, it does not appear that there is yet a case where there are grounds for Hong Kong to initiate a request for asset sharing. Should such a case arise, the matter will be considered by the Committee proposed in paragraph 14 above.
LEGISLATIVE AMENDMENTS
16
Under section 13(7) of the Drug Trafficking (Recovery of Proceeds) Ordinance, the balance of the proceeds of confiscation, after the settlement of specific payments stipulated in the section, shall be deposited in the General Revenue. If we agree in principle to asset sharing, then the continued practice of transferring the balance of confiscated assets into the General Revenue would-