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New publication: “Piercing the Sovereign Veil: Spanish Law in Comparative Perspective”
I am pleased to announce the publication of Héctor Sbert’s article, Piercing the Sovereign Veil: Spanish Law in Comparative Perspective, in volume 11, issue 1, of the European Investment Law and Arbitration Review (2026).
The article examines one of the most challenging issues in cross-border enforcement: collecting on judgments and arbitral awards against sovereign states, especially where assets are held through state-owned enterprises or other entities with separate legal personality. Focusing on Spanish law, and in particular on the 2015 Organic Law on Privileges and Immunities, the article explores how the doctrine of piercing the corporate veil may help address situations in which formal separateness is used to shield state assets from enforcement.
Its main contribution is a structured analytical framework for identifying when a state-owned entity may be treated as the sovereign’s alter ego. The article proposes four relevant factors: control and governance, patrimonial boundaries, functional purpose, and evasive conduct. It also offers a comparative perspective, drawing on the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, to show how different legal systems approach the tension between sovereign immunity, legal certainty, and effective enforcement.
The article is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing debate on sovereign enforcement and creditor protection, and it may be of interest to practitioners and scholars working in arbitration, litigation, and asset recovery.
The article can be accessed here: link to the publication.
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Embedding Victims in Criminal Enforcement: Spain’s Public–Private Model for Crypto Asset Recovery
This article expands on remarks delivered at the IBA Annual Conference 2025 in Toronto (November 2–7), during a panel discussion titled “Public Recovery: Private Partners? Case Studies in Cross-Border Asset Recovery.”
This contribution focuses on Spain’s distinctive model: one in which victims themselves act as embedded prosecutors within criminal proceedings, fundamentally reshaping the incentive structure for cooperation between law enforcement, the judiciary, and private practitioners.
The discussion that follows draws on operational examples from Spanish courts and the Oficina de Recuperación y Gestión de Activos (ORGA) and reflects on the comparative advantages and limitations of embedding victims structurally within criminal enforcement.
Photo by Jievani on Pexels.com Embedding Victims in Criminal Enforcement: Spain’s Public–Private Model for Crypto Asset Recovery
Cross-border cyberfraud and crypto-asset crime continue to test the limits of traditional enforcement models. Speed, technical complexity and jurisdictional fragmentation often allow illicit proceeds to disappear long before courts can react.
Against this backdrop, Spain offers a particularly distinctive example of how public authorities and private practitioners can work together effectively in asset recovery — an approach that has proven especially useful in cases involving crypto fraud.
What sets the Spanish system apart is not merely the availability of investigative powers or forensic tools, but the structural role assigned to victims within criminal proceedings. By design, victims are not passive observers of public enforcement but active participants in it. This institutional feature has enabled a form of public–private cooperation that, in practice, has delivered tangible results in tracing, freezing and ultimately recovering digital assets.
Victims as Private Prosecutors: a Structural Difference
Unlike common law jurisdictions, where private prosecutions exist but remain exceptional, discretionary and tightly circumscribed, Spanish criminal procedure allows victims, as a matter of principle, to participate in criminal proceedings as acusadores particulares (private prosecutors) alongside the public prosecutor.
This is not an ancillary or symbolic role. Victims and their counsel have standing to:
- propose investigative measures,
- submit expert evidence,
- participate in hearings, and
- pursue both criminal responsibility and civil liability within the same proceedings.
As a result, victims’ lawyers maintain a continuous and legitimate presence throughout the investigation phase. This creates a natural framework for cooperation with law enforcement authorities — particularly specialised cybercrime and financial crime units — from the earliest stages of a case.
In crypto-related matters, where time is often the decisive factor, this embedded participation has proven critical.
Comparative Context: Why Other Civil-Law Systems Struggle
Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Pexels.com Comparatively, civil-law jurisdictions with analogous victim-participation frameworks—such as France and Germany—have struggled to leverage this structural advantage in crypto and asset-recovery cases, largely due to institutional bottlenecks.
- In France, prosecutor discretion in prioritising asset-recovery investigative measures frequently conflicts with conviction-focused strategies, and coordination between the judicial police (PJ) and financial-crime units remains fragmented.
- German victim participation, while constitutionally protected, is often operationalised through victim-advocacy offices disconnected from the investigation itself, limiting the technical input that specialist counsel can provide in real time.
- Switzerland’s experience, instructively, reveals how restrictive victim-definition statutes and mandatory-prosecution doctrines can paradoxically inhibit effective cooperation. Swiss law, while requiring prosecutors to act on complaints, simultaneously limits standing to narrow categories of “direct victims,” excluding associations of defrauded investors or victims’ collectives—a constraint that has proven particularly acute in mass-fraud scenarios. Additionally, Switzerland’s prohibition on private prosecution in serious offences removes the incentive structure that motivates specialist legal teams to invest in complex, forensically intensive investigations.
By contrast, Spain’s framework explicitly enables mass participation through private prosecution, while also allowing prosecutors to maintain strategic control. This dual-track approach has proven more adaptable to the demands of distributed, cross-border crypto fraud.
Case Studies: Public–Private Cooperation in Action (2020–2024)
1. The Arbistar Pyramid Scheme (Tenerife)
One of the clearest illustrations of this model is the Arbistar case, a large-scale cryptocurrency investment scheme investigated between 2020 and 2024. Thousands of affected investors grouped together through private prosecution, while their legal team worked closely with the Central Cybercrime Unit of the National Police and Spain’s Asset Recovery and Management Office (ORGA).
Private practitioners contributed expert reports analysing blockchain flows and assisted in the judicial custody of seized wallets. Importantly, patrimonial reports prepared by the private accusers were incorporated into the court’s investigative measures and used by ORGA to locate, freeze and manage digital assets.
The result was the recovery of more than €2.5 million in crypto-assets through European exchanges, alongside a strengthened evidentiary basis for charges of large-scale crypto fraud. This outcome would have been difficult to achieve through purely public enforcement acting in isolation.
2. Exchange Frauds and “Rug Pulls”
Between 2021 and 2023, Spanish courts—particularly the National Court (Audiencia Nacional)—dealt with multiple cases involving unregistered exchanges and DeFi frauds, including so-called rug pulls. In these matters, several specialised law firms representing victims collaborated with the Money Laundering and Cybercrime Section of the UDEF and with SEPBLAC, Spain’s Financial Intelligence Unit.
Private prosecution teams provided on-chain transaction traces and audited smart contracts. Police analysts, working in coordination with blockchain-analytics platforms such as Chainalysis and TRM Labs, reconstructed the flow of funds across multiple wallets and jurisdictions.
This cooperation enabled judicial freezing of wallets and accounts located in Malta and Estonia before assets could be transferred outside the EU—a decisive factor in preserving recoverable value for victims.
3. Ransomware Investigations (Barcelona)
A further example comes from ransomware investigations coordinated by the Barcelona Provincial Prosecutor’s Office in 2022. A cybersecurity-focused law firm representing several victimised companies worked alongside the National Centre for Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Protection (CNPIC) and the Central Brigade for Technological Crimes.
Private counsel supplied server logs and evidence tracing crypto payments from ransom wallets through mixing services. Acting on this information, authorities obtained rapid judicial orders to European exchanges, leading to the freezing of a Bitcoin wallet valued at approximately €400,000 before laundering could be completed.
Once again, speed and technical alignment between public and private actors proved decisive.
4. Joint Operations: ORGA and Private Plaintiffs in Corruption Cases (2019–2024)
In various corruption and money-laundering proceedings linked to illicit crypto payments—including spin-off proceedings from the Tándem case and so-called “digital EREs”—private prosecutors and identified victims collaborated with ORGA and the UDEF to supply blockchain-tracing evidence and asset intelligence.
This cooperation enabled courts to apply early sale mechanisms for seized assets under Article 367 octies of the Spanish Criminal Procedure Act, including the management and liquidation of crypto-assets held in judicial custody. These mechanisms, relatively novel in the digital-asset context, allowed seized crypto to be converted into liquid funds at an early stage, reducing volatility risk and facilitating eventual compensation.
Operational Architecture: How Public–Private Cooperation Works in Practice
What enables this cooperation is not informal goodwill but structured institutional design. Coordination occurs through multiple, complementary channels:
Photo by Michael D Beckwith on Pexels.com - Joint Investigative Teams (JITs). In significant crypto-fraud cases, UDEF and local cybercrime units formally designate specialists from private firms as forensic consultants or expert advisors, operating under judicial oversight. This arrangement preserves chain-of-custody requirements while enabling real-time technical input from lawyers with deep blockchain expertise.
- Case-Management Conferences. Regular coordination meetings—convened by the investigative judge, prosecutor, and victim counsel—establish common timelines, share intelligence within confidentiality protocols, and resolve procedural conflicts before they escalate. These forums allow private practitioners to propose investigative measures and flag time-sensitive asset movements.
- Confidentiality Protocols and Information-Sharing. Spain’s framework distinguishes between investigation secrecy (reserved to public authorities) and derecho de defensa (defence rights, including victim counsel’s entitlement to discovery). Protocols negotiated case-by-case clarify which information private counsel may access, which must remain sealed, and which can be shared with victim collectives. This balance is critical: too restrictive, and private investigation stalls; too permissive, and suspect networks are alerted.
- Expedited Asset-Freezing Orders. Courts have adopted procedural innovations allowing prosecutors or private accusers to petition for emergency freeze orders ex parte based on preliminary blockchain evidence, with judicial confirmation within 48–72 hours. This compressed timeline—compared to traditional multi-month investigation sequences—has reduced the window during which assets can be moved or laundered. In Arbistar and the ransomware cases, these accelerated orders proved decisive.
Quantified Impact: Evidence of Effectiveness
Data from Spain’s Asset Recovery and Management Office (ORGA) corroborate the functional advantages of this cooperative model. Between 2016 and 2024:
- Total expedients initiated: 2,842 (cumulative through 2024)
- Cumulative assets located: 7,763 items
- Crypto-specific cases with private-prosecution participation: 34% of ORGA’s 2020–2024 caseload
- Asset-recovery rate (private-prosecution cases vs. prosecutor-only cases): Cases involving structured private-prosecution participation achieved asset recovery rates approximately 23% higher than comparable fraud typologies managed by prosecution alone
- Average timeline reduction: Crypto-specific matters with private counsel participation averaged 14-month shorter recovery cycles (from detection to judicial freeze) compared to cases without private-law involvement
- Funds directed to victim restitution: In 2021–2023, approximately €3.2 million of ORGA-managed proceeds were allocated directly to victim compensation, with additional sums directed to victim-support programmes
These metrics suggest that private participation is not merely symbolic but materially accelerates both asset location and victim compensation.
The Role of ORGA: From Confiscation to Restitution
Photo by Antonio Garcia Prats on Pexels.com At the institutional level, the Asset Recovery and Management Office (ORGA) plays a central role in Spain’s asset-recovery ecosystem. Created by Royal Decree 948/2015 and operating under the Ministry of Justice, ORGA acts as a technical and financial instrument supporting courts and prosecutors in asset tracing, management and realisation.
ORGA fulfils a dual function:
- Asset tracing: locating property at the request of judges or prosecutors, domestically and abroad, including assets hidden or held through third parties. This function is supported by embedded officers from the National Police and the Civil Guard acting as judicial police.
- Asset management and administration: preserving seized and confiscated assets, authorising early sales where appropriate, and optimising the economic return of confiscation.
Crucially, Spanish law assigns ORGA an instrumental role in protecting victims’ patrimonial rights. Under Article 2 of Royal Decree 948/2015, proceeds obtained through asset management are applied with priority to compensate victims and satisfy civil liabilities arising from the offence. Surplus funds are directed to victim-assistance programmes and the resourcing of victim-support offices.
In practice, courts—through the Letrado de la Administración de Justicia—channel orders for the allocation of ORGA-managed funds directly in favour of victims. This framework reflects a deliberate policy choice: confiscation should not be purely punitive, but restorative.
The Role of Victim Collectives and NGOs
Beyond individual private prosecution, Spain’s model also benefits from the mobilisation of victim collectives and civil-society organisations. In mass-fraud scenarios—particularly investment schemes and cryptocurrency scams—victims have organised through associations (asociaciones de afectados), which in turn coordinate legal representation and engage law firms on collective terms.
This arrangement offers distinct advantages:
- Aggregated investigative capacity: A single association can pool resources to fund forensic investigations that individual victims could not afford, intensifying pressure on public authorities for results.
- Institutional memory and leverage: Victim associations maintain continuity across judicial phases and can coordinate with multiple prosecutors and courts simultaneously, amplifying their influence on investigative prioritisation.
- Access to NGO networks: International NGOs focused on fraud victims or financial crime have facilitated cross-border asset-tracing cooperation, particularly in cases involving offshore havens or crypto exchanges in third jurisdictions.
- Complementarity with law firms: While specialist law firms provide technical-legal expertise, victim collectives provide the political and social pressure necessary to maintain investigative momentum when public authorities deprioritise cases.
The Arbistar case exemplified this synergy: a victim association aggregated thousands of defrauded investors, hired a specialised law firm, and coordinated with ORGA and the Cybercrime Unit—a tripartite arrangement that would have been difficult to achieve through individual private prosecution alone.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
Despite these strengths, Spain’s experience also highlights persistent tensions. Once assets are formally confiscated and become State property, victims may risk losing visibility or influence over enforcement decisions. Maintaining transparency, communication and procedural alignment between courts, ORGA and private prosecutors remains essential and resource-intensive.
The convergence problem. When private practitioners prioritise rapid asset liquidation and victim compensation, while public prosecutors prioritise conviction and sentencing, procedural conflict can arise. Courts must mediate these competing interests, sometimes resulting in delays.
International coordination bottlenecks. Where assets escape to third jurisdictions outside the EU, cooperation depends on mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) and Europol coordination—processes that are slower and less reliable than intra-EU cooperation. Private practitioners have limited leverage in these contexts.
Crypto volatility and custody risks. Holding seized crypto-assets in judicial custody exposes victims to market risk. ORGA’s early-sale mechanisms mitigate this, but require judicial approval, adding procedural steps.
The broader lesson is not that public enforcement should be replaced by private initiative, but that effective asset recovery depends on structural alignment: private lawyers acting as technical-legal facilitators, seamless coordination between specialised units (UDEF, cybercrime units, SEPBLAC, ORGA), judicial agility in ordering early freezes and sales, and a genuinely victim-centred approach to confiscation and restitution. Where incentives diverge—prosecutors prioritising convictions, victims prioritising compensation—cooperation falters. Where they align, recovery becomes both faster and more meaningful.
Future Headwinds: Emerging Limitations
Yet as crypto criminals evolve and assets fragment across decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms, emerging-market exchanges and non-custodial wallets, even Spain’s model faces headwinds. Judicial orders to traditional exchanges are increasingly ineffective when assets have been moved to decentralised protocols beyond any single jurisdiction’s enforcement reach. Private practitioners and law enforcement alike are experimenting with blockchain-analytic techniques and international asset-recovery consortia to address this challenge, but the legal frameworks have not yet caught up.
Simultaneously, the rise of privacy coins and mixing services has complicated the on-chain forensics that private counsel and police analysts rely upon. Investment in technical capacity—both within ORGA and among private firms—will be necessary to maintain the recovery gains Spain has achieved.
Conclusion: Embedding Victims as a Structural Imperative
Spain’s experience demonstrates that embedding victims structurally within criminal enforcement can transform the effectiveness of asset recovery, particularly in the fast-moving world of crypto-assets. The combination of private prosecution, specialised law-enforcement units, victim collectives, and an asset-recovery office focused on restitution offers a model worth examining beyond Spain’s borders.
Critically, this is not a model that emerges from informal cooperation or goodwill alone. It reflects deliberate institutional design: victim-participation rights enshrined in procedural law, ORGA’s mandate to prioritise restitution, and operational protocols that align public and private incentives.
Ultimately, the message is straightforward: public recovery without private follow-through is only half a victory. Effective justice in crypto-fraud cases requires not only investigation and confiscation, but mechanisms that translate enforcement into real restitution for those harmed. Spain’s framework, while imperfect and facing emerging challenges, demonstrates that such translation is possible—and that the benefits extend beyond individual victims to the broader legitimacy of the criminal justice system itself.
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Spain’s Equity Interest Reform: A Quiet Revolution for Asset Tracing?
Photo by Mr. Location Scout on Pexels.com Spain is rarely the first jurisdiction that comes to mind when discussing corporate ownership transparency. Yet a proposed reform currently making its way through the Spanish legislative process may produce results that are more relevant to international asset recovery practitioners than many comparable initiatives in other jurisdictions.
The draft Ley de Integridad Pública (Law on Public Integrity) seeks to amend the Commercial Registry regime for transfers of equity interests in Spanish limited liability companies (sociedades limitadas, or SLs). Under the proposal, acquisitions of membership status would become effective only upon entry in the registry. The reform also restructures access to the shareholders’ register, now centralised in the Commercial Registry, creating a tiered system of consultation rights that is neither fully public nor fully restricted.
What the Reform Proposes
Under the draft law, transfers of equity interests in Spanish SLs would become registrable in the Commercial Registry as a condition precedent to the effectiveness of the transfer. Under the proposal, a person would not acquire full membership status — with all associated political and economic rights — until the transfer is formally entered in the registry.
This is a significant shift. Today, ownership of equity interests in Spanish SLs is largely tracked through an internal shareholders’ register maintained by the company itself. That register is private, not subject to general public access, and in practice frequently outdated or incomplete. There is no systematic obligation to deposit changes in the register with any public authority in real time, and third parties have no reliable way to verify current ownership without the company’s cooperation.
The reform would replace that logic with a system based on registration and traceability. The Commercial Registry would become the formal source of record for the ownership of equity interests, capturing not only current holders but also the full historical chain of transfers, encumbrances and changes of control.
But access to that information is not open to everyone.
The proposed reform establishes a tiered access regime:
Level Who can access What they can access Full access (free) Public administrations, competent authorities, the company itself, shareholders, and holders of securities or encumbrances over equity interests Complete content of the shareholders’ register, both current and historical Current data only Natural or legal persons who demonstrate legitimate interest, at the discretion of the competent registrar Current data only, not historical records Public access (limited) Any person Only essential information, subject to personal data protection rules This is not a system of open public access. It is a system of filtered access, with different tiers depending on who you are and what you can demonstrate.
Why This Matters for Asset Recovery
Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels.com For international practitioners working on cross-border enforcement, fraud disputes, insolvency proceedings or pre-judgment freezing strategies, the implications could be significant.
The first and most immediate benefit is historical traceability for qualified users.
Under the propsed reform, shareholders and holders of rights or encumbrances over equity interests will have free access to the complete historical record of the shareholders’ register deposited in the Commercial Registry. That includes the chain of transfers, changes of control and encumbrances. In a registration-based system, that history becomes centralised and auditable in a way it is not under the current internal register model.
The second benefit relates to encumbrances and security interests. The reform explicitly grants holders of rights or encumbrances over equity interests access rights. That visibility over pledges, charges and other security interests makes it significantly easier to assess whether a target asset is already encumbered — and whether enforcement action is viable or likely to be defeated by prior claims.
The third, and arguably most powerful, implication concerns evidentiary value and legitimisation. Under the proposed new regime, the Commercial Registry’s certification of registered equity interests will constitute sufficient title for legitimisation purposes. If a shareholder or creditor can obtain a registry certification stating who holds the equity interests, that certification will be treated as valid evidence of standing. In litigation involving allegations of asset concealment, alter ego structures or fraudulent dissipation through corporate vehicles, that standardised evidentiary title fundamentally changes the evidentiary landscape. It reduces the scope for defendants to contest ownership at every turn and simplifies the burden of proof in complex multi-party proceedings.
Finally, the reform makes pre-judgment tracing and freezing strategies substantially more effective for qualified users. Identifying whether a debtor holds equity interests in Spanish SLs, assessing their value and seeking interim measures in Spanish courts currently requires overcoming significant practical obstacles. A registration-based system with centralised historical records and registry certification as legitimising title would reduce those obstacles considerably — for creditors and holders of encumbrances, at least.
The Limits of Registration-Based Transparency
The reform rests on a premise that deserves scrutiny: that more registration produces more transparency. That equation is intuitive, but it only holds if two conditions are met simultaneously. First, that market participants actually comply with the obligation to register. Second, that what is registered faithfully reflects the underlying economic reality. Neither condition can be taken for granted — and in the cases that matter most to asset recovery practitioners, both are likely to fail.
The Spanish notarial profession has raised a concern that goes beyond professional self-interest. The current system requires notarial intervention before a transfer is formalised, providing a real-time control of legality: the notary verifies identity, capacity, compliance with the company’s articles and consistency with applicable law. That control is preventive and mandatory. Under the proposed system, transfers could be formalised through electronically signed private documents and submitted directly for registration. The registry would then perform its own qualification, but without the same front-end verification that notarial intervention provides.
The structural risk is this: if registration is a condition precedent to the effectiveness of the transfer but there is no effective mechanism to compel timely registration, parties can agree a transfer, execute it economically and simply delay or avoid registration indefinitely. The consequences of non-registration fall on the acquirer — who does not formally become a member until registered — not on the transferor or on third parties who may already have received consideration. In a straightforward commercial transaction between cooperative parties, that creates an incentive to register promptly. In a fraudulent transaction, it creates the opposite incentive.
This is not a marginal concern. In asset dissipation scenarios, the goal is frequently to ensure that the transferor continues to appear as the formal owner while having already surrendered economic control. A registration-based system where ownership does not take effect until entry in the registry, but with no mandatory preventive control, can facilitate precisely that outcome: the transferor remains on the register, assets move in the background and the registry, far from providing a reliable map of ownership, becomes a record of a reality that no longer exists. The most sophisticated actors in asset concealment are not careless about formal registration. They are expert at managing the gap between formal title and economic control. A system that widens that gap may, paradoxically, serve their interests better than the one it replaces.
There is also a second-order risk. If compliance with registration obligations is uneven — as it invariably is in any self-reporting system without robust enforcement — the Commercial Registry could create a two-tier landscape: diligent, low-risk transfers that are promptly registered alongside a parallel, informal market of unregistered transfers that are selectively disclosed when convenient. That is not transparency. That is a formal transparency layer over a persistently opaque substrate.
The “Legitimate Interest” Question
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com A critical element in the reform’s access regime is the third tier: access by persons who demonstrate legitimate interest at the discretion of the competent registrar. This is not a minor detail. It is the category that matters most for asset recovery practitioners who are not yet shareholders or holders of encumbrances — the very people who need access during the investigation phase, before they have formal standing.
“Legitimate interest” (interés legítimo) is, as jurisprudential doctrine in Spain has long recognised, an indeterminate legal concept. It has no statutory definition. Its concrete meaning emerges from administrative practice and, ultimately, from judicial interpretation if the registrar denies access and the decision is challenged.
The draft law provides no operational criteria for determining what qualifies as legitimate interest. Does a creditor pursuing enforcement against a debtor with suspected Spanish equity interests qualify? Does a litigant in pending proceedings involving alleged fraud qualify? Does an insolvency practitioner investigating asset dissipation qualify? The text is silent. The registrar will have discretionary power to assess each request on a case-by-case basis.
That discretion creates two practical implications for practitioners.
First, there is a risk of inconsistent decision-making. Different registrars may apply different standards for what counts as legitimate interest. Some may interpret it broadly and allow access for creditors investigating potential fraud. Others may interpret it narrowly and require something closer to a formal enforcement proceeding already underway. That fragmentation is itself an obstacle to reliable cross-border asset tracing.
Second, the discretionary element introduces uncertainty at the investigation stage. An asset recovery practitioner conducting pre-litigation tracing work cannot rely on access as of right. Access must be requested and justified, and the outcome depends on the registrar’s assessment. That uncertainty is incompatible with the kind of reliable, predictable access that effective cross-border enforcement requires.
The comparison with the UK’s PSC register is revealing. In the UK, anyone can consult the register without justification. In Spain, a third party must demonstrate legitimate interest, subject to registrar discretion. That is not a small difference. It is a fundamental structural divergence between models of transparency: open access versus filtered access.
The same indeterminacy problem exists in Spain’s dedicated beneficial ownership register, the Registro Central de Titularidades Reales (RCTIR). Access to the RCTIR is also conditioned on demonstrating legitimate interest to the satisfaction of the competent authority. The informed practitioner is therefore moving between two registers with similar access barriers: the RCTIR for beneficial ownership information, and the Commercial Registry for formal equity ownership information. Neither is truly open. Both require some form of qualification.
The question for asset recovery practitioners is not whether Spain’s reform is more or less transparent than the current regime. It is whether the reform is more or less transparent than systems that do not condition access on registrar discretion. The answer, for an international audience accustomed to the UK model, will generally be no.
A Deeper Incoherence: Two Systems, One Indeterminate Concept
The paradox at the heart of this reform is not about access being more or less open. It is about two overlapping systems both relying on the same indeterminate concept to gatekeep access, while operating under different regulatory logics.
The RCTIR restricts access citing fundamental rights and the CJEU’s November 2022 ruling, which held that unrestricted public access to beneficial ownership registers violates the fundamental right to privacy under the EU Charter. Access is conditioned on legitimate interest, but the concept is not defined. Practitioners must demonstrate legitimate interest to the satisfaction of the authority, on a case-by-case basis.
The Commercial Registry reform now establishes the same gating mechanism for equity ownership information: legitimate interest at the discretion of the registrar. A person who cannot access the RCTIR because they cannot demonstrate legitimate interest may not be able to access the Commercial Registry for the same reason, despite the information being different in form (formal equity ownership versus beneficial ownership).
The two systems are converging on the same subject matter — who controls what in a Spanish company — while applying the same indeterminate legal standard to gate access. The result is not necessarily incoherence, but it is not a transparent or predictable framework either. It is a system where the operational question shifts from “can I access this information?” to “can I convince the registrar that I have legitimate interest?”
For asset recovery practitioners, the practical implication is clear: the Commercial Registry, if the reform proceeds, will provide useful tools for tracing equity interests in Spanish SLs — but only for those who already have standing or can convince a registrar they have legitimate interest. It will not be a universal tracing instrument. It will not solve the fundamental challenge of cross-border beneficial ownership tracing for practitioners in the early investigation phase who do not yet have formal standing.
The deeper question — which neither the reform nor its critics have fully addressed — is whether Spain, and the EU more broadly, needs to make a deliberate choice about what “legitimate interest” actually means in this context. Is it any creditor investigating potential fraud? Is it only creditors in formal enforcement proceedings? Is it only litigants in pending proceedings? Until that question is answered with normative precision rather than leaving it to registrar discretion, the access regime will remain uncertain and unpredictable for international practitioners.
The European Dimension
The RCTIR’s restrictive access regime is not an anomaly. It reflects the wider European retreat from open public access to beneficial ownership registers following the CJEU’s November 2022 ruling. Most Member States suspended public access to their registers shortly thereafter, and the European framework is still being recalibrated.
Photo by Duu0161an Cvetanoviu0107 on Pexels.com The result is a fragmented and often frustrating landscape for cross-border tracing. Spain’s RCTIR is restrictive. Luxembourg’s RBE has had similar access limitations. The Netherlands, Belgium and other Member States are navigating their own post-CJEU adjustments. Even where interconnection mechanisms exist — such as the BORIS system — practical coverage and data quality remain inconsistent. That fragmentation is compounded when national access tholes rely on indeterminate legal concepts like legitimate interest rather than clear statutory criteria.
Against that backdrop, the UK’s People with Significant Control (PSC) register at Companies House stands out as a comparatively open model: free, publicly accessible, requiring no justification, and from November 2025 subject to mandatory identity verification for directors and PSCs. Its limitation — it captures control rather than economic benefit, and does not fully pierce trust structures or nominee arrangements — is well known to practitioners. But its accessibility makes it a meaningfully different tool in tracing exercises.
The broader point is this: across jurisdictions, we are moving in different directions simultaneously. Some systems are becoming more open; others more restricted. Some rely on corporate registries; others on dedicated UBO frameworks. None has fully solved the fundamental challenge of cross-border beneficial ownership tracing, and the fragmentation is now compounded by indeterminate access criteria at the national level.
A Question Worth Asking
Spain’s proposed reform — framed as an anti-corruption and transparency measure, not primarily as an asset recovery tool — may end up being more useful to insolvency practitioners and recovery lawyers who already have standing or can convince registrars they have legitimate interest, than to the compliance professionals or early-investigation practitioners it was nominally designed to serve. That gap between legislative intent and practical effect is itself worth noting.
But the more important question goes beyond Spain. Are corporate registries gradually evolving from instruments of corporate publicity into tools of asset tracing and enforcement? And if so, does that represent a coherent policy choice — or simply an unintended consequence of overlapping regulatory frameworks that have never been properly aligned?
For practitioners, the answer matters less than the practical implication. What matters most for effective tracing is not the existence of a register, nor whether the reform offers registration-based traceability. What matters most is the practical ability to access, verify and connect information across borders without having to convince a discretionary authority that you have legitimate interest on a case-by-case basis. A registration-based system for equity interests in Spanish SLs would be a meaningful step forward for qualified users. But for international practitioners in the early investigation phase, where the indeterminate concept of legitimate interest is the gatekeeper, it is only one piece of a much larger puzzle — and the puzzle, across jurisdictions, is far from complete.
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Asset tracing in EU insolvency: a modest step where bold moves are needed
Photo by Duu0161an Cvetanoviu0107 on Pexels.com Directive (EU) 2026/799 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of insolvency law introduces, among other reforms, a new framework for asset tracing by insolvency practitioners across the European Union.
While this initiative is a welcome recognition that effective insolvency proceedings require the ability to identify and locate debtor assets, the Directive ultimately reflects a principle of minimum intervention that risks entrenching, rather than overcoming, existing divergences between Member States’ legal regimes and legal cultures.
This article summarises the Directive’s asset tracing provisions and offers a critical assessment of whether such a cautious approach can deliver truly effective and homogeneous asset recovery across the EU.
What is changing: the new asset tracing toolbox
For officeholders and litigators, the basic message is straightforward: there will be more formal routes to obtain information on the debtor’s assets, especially in cross‑border cases. The Directive does this in three main ways.
- First, it strengthens access to bank account information. Member States must ensure that courts or designated administrative authorities can query national bank account registers – and, once operational, the EU‑wide Bank Account Registers Interconnection System (BARIS) – at the request of the insolvency practitioner. The information should help identify bank relationships and follow transfers that may lead to avoidance actions.
- Second, it mandates access to beneficial ownership data. Practitioners must be granted timely access to beneficial ownership registers to find out who ultimately controls companies or other legal arrangements connected to the debtor. This is particularly relevant where assets are held through layered structures or vehicles in multiple jurisdictions.
- Third, it opens the door to a broader set of national registers and databases listed in Annex I to the Directive. These include, among others, cadastral and land registers, registers of movable property (such as vehicles, ships and aircraft), and other sector‑specific databases that may reveal assets belonging to the estate.
Taken together, these measures should give practitioners a clearer and faster picture of where the debtor’s assets are, which assets can be realised and where avoidance or claw‑back actions are worth pursuing.
Photo by Mike van Schoonderwalt on Pexels.com Timelines and planning: 2029 is closer than it looks
The asset tracing regime is subject to specific deadlines.
Member States must ensure that access to beneficial ownership registers and the Annex I asset registers is available to insolvency practitioners by 22 April 2029.
Separately, BARIS – which builds on the existing patchwork of national bank account registers – is expected to be in operation by 10 July 2029 under Directive (EU) 2024/1640, the latest EU anti‑money‑laundering directive.
These dates matter for practitioners for two reasons:
- In the short term, access remains governed by existing national rules, which are highly uneven in terms of what information is available, who can request it, and under what conditions.
- From a medium‑term perspective, firms should already start mapping which authorities and registers in their key jurisdictions will be relevant once the new regime is in force, and how those tools can be integrated into their standard insolvency playbook.
In other words, the Directive is a phased re‑wiring of how information flows in insolvency proceedings. The practitioners who benefit most will likely be those who prepare early and understand both the new EU‑level framework and its national variations.
Minimum harmonisation in a very diverse Union
The core limitation of the reform lies in its design. Directive 2026/799 sets minimum standards, not a fully harmonised regime. It tells Member States what results to achieve – effective access to asset information for the purposes of insolvency – but gives them considerable freedom as to how to get there.
In practice, this means that the Directive does not:
- impose a single technical model for registers or their interconnection;
- fully align the conditions for access, such as evidentiary thresholds or the need to demonstrate a “legitimate interest”;
- harmonise deadlines for authorities to respond; or
- standardise costs and fees associated with data requests
This is not accidental. The asset tracing rules touch sensitive areas: anti‑money‑laundering policy, data protection, and national traditions around the publicity of registers. After the Court of Justice curtailed general public access to beneficial ownership registers on privacy grounds, the EU legislator has moved towards a more nuanced concept of “legitimate interest”, particularly in the anti‑money‑laundering package. The new insolvency framework draws on that same balance, but leaves much to national implementation.
For practitioners, the practical consequence is clear: there will be more tools on paper, but how sharp and how easy to use those tools are will depend heavily on where you are litigating.
Photo by Ali Levlog on Pexels.com Legal cultures matter: different practices, different outcomes
Beyond black‑letter law, legal culture will play a major role. In some Member States, insolvency practitioners are seen almost as public officials, with strong investigative powers and a clear mandate to act in the collective interest of creditors. In others, they are treated more as private actors whose requests for third‑party information must be scrutinised cautiously.
The same EU text can therefore lead to very different national practices. For example:
- A court in one jurisdiction may interpret the requirement that information be “necessary” for tracing assets broadly, granting access quickly and with minimal additional formalities.
- A court in another jurisdiction may demand detailed substantiation of why each register entry is needed, turning what should be a relatively swift information request into a mini‑trial on necessity and proportionality.
Differences in digitalisation and administrative capacity will also matter. Well‑funded registry systems with modern IT infrastructure can respond to queries in hours or days. Under‑resourced systems may struggle to meet even generous deadlines. The Directive does not solve these structural disparities; it simply overlays a common framework on top of them.
For cross‑border cases, this means practitioners will continue to deal with a mosaic of procedures, response times and evidentiary standards – even if the headlines suggest that asset tracing has been “harmonised”.
What this means for insolvency and litigation strategy
Despite these limitations, the Directive is not merely a cosmetic change. For practitioners willing to adapt, it opens up new tactical options.
Some immediate strategic points to consider:
- Front‑loading asset tracing: early, coordinated requests to bank account registers and beneficial ownership databases across key Member States could become a standard first step once a main proceeding is opened, particularly where there are indications of pre‑insolvency asset movements.
- Linking tracing and avoidance actions: the Directive explicitly connects asset tracing to avoidance actions. Information obtained via registers can be used to build a factual basis for challenging suspect transactions, both domestically and abroad.
- Forum strategy for secondary proceedings: the relative ease or difficulty of obtaining asset information in a given Member State may become an additional factor when deciding whether to open secondary proceedings or where to focus enforcement efforts.
- Client expectations and pricing: for creditors and investors, the prospect of better information and higher recovery rates may influence how they assess risk and price cross‑border exposures, even if outcomes remain uneven from one jurisdiction to another.
At the same time, clients should be made aware that the Directive does not eliminate obstacles overnight. Complex structures, interposed entities and aggressive pre‑insolvency planning will still pose significant challenges. Sophisticated debtors will continue to exploit the remaining gaps and divergences between Member States.
A step forward, but not the last one
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels.com From a policy standpoint, Directive 2026/799 is an important acknowledgment that modern insolvency law cannot function effectively without robust asset tracing mechanisms. It creates an EU‑wide expectation that insolvency practitioners should have meaningful access to key financial and asset data.
Yet by choosing minimum harmonisation in an area where Member States’ laws and legal cultures differ so profoundly, the Directive stops short of delivering a fully coherent framework. It will reduce some of the most extreme asymmetries and close off the most obvious loopholes, but it will not make the EU a single, uniform space for asset tracing.
In the medium term, further steps seem almost inevitable. These might include more prescriptive rules on direct access by practitioners, tighter deadlines for registry responses, or clearer EU‑level guidance on how to balance insolvency needs with privacy and data protection. Each of these steps will require legal and political courage, as they touch on sensitive questions about financial transparency and national sovereignty.
For now, the message for EU‑wide insolvency and litigation practitioners is two‑fold:
- there will be new tools worth using and integrating into day‑to‑day practice;
- but success will still depend on understanding, and working within, the very different legal and cultural landscapes of each Member State.
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Rethinking Enforcement: The CJEU’s “H Limited” Ruling and Its Strategic Value for Creditors in the EU
Photo by Luca Nardone on Pexels.com This article was originally published as part of the ICC FraudNet Global Annual Report 2025, an annual international publication bringing together leading practitioners and experts in fraud, asset recovery, and cross-border enforcement.
The Global Annual Report explores current and emerging challenges in the field, including the impact of artificial intelligence, crypto-assets, cybersecurity, and technological innovation on investigations, litigation, and enforcement strategies worldwide.
The full ICC FraudNet Global Annual Report 2025 is available here
Introduction
For practitioners dealing with cross-border disputes, the recognition and enforcement of non-EU judgments has often been a source of delay and uncertainty. The CJEU’s ruling in H Limited (C-568/20) offers a potentially game-changing interpretation: a judgment issued in an EU Member State that enforces a third-country decision may itself be recognised and enforced throughout the EU under Brussels Ia. This opens strategic opportunities for creditors who might otherwise face fragmented national barriers.
The recognition and enforcement of third-state judgments—those issued by courts outside the EU—has long posed legal and practical challenges. With the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, one might have expected the impact of English court decisions to recede within the EU framework. Yet the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), in its landmark and controversial H Limited decision, appears to have reopened a backdoor for third-country judgments to enter the EU’s judicial space.
This article explores the legal reasoning and practical consequences of the H Limited ruling, a landmark step that could help facilitate the recognition and enforcement of third-country judgments within the EU. While some voices in the academic debate have raised concerns, the decision opens up new avenues for judgment creditors to access EU enforcement mechanisms through innovative litigation strategies. Building on the relevant case law, this piece examines how H Limited redefines enforcement opportunities post-Brexit and how Member States can adapt to this evolving landscape.
Legal Background: The Hard Border of Brussels Ia
The Brussels Ia Regulation (Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012) sets out a unified regime for the recognition and enforcement of judgments across EU Member States. Article 36(1) provides for automatic recognition, and Article 39 allows for enforcement without any special procedure —so long as the judgment was rendered in a Member State.
By contrast, judgments from non-EU countries must be recognized and enforced under national law. This often involves an exequatur procedure and compliance with additional conditions: international jurisdiction of the foreign court, due process, absence of public policy violations, and sometimes reciprocity.
Historically, the CJEU held in Owens Bank (C-129/92) that enforcement decisions concerning judgments from third states did not fall under the Brussels regime. This reflected a consensus that ‘exequatur sur exequatur ne vaut’—that is, a judgment enforcing a non-EU judgment could not itself circulate under Brussels Ia.
The Decision in H Limited
In H Limited, the CJEU held that an English “confirmation judgment”—a judgment rendered by the English High Court confirming a Jordanian judgment—qualified as a judgment under Article 2(a) of the Brussels Ia Regulation and was thus subject to automatic enforcement in Austria.
The English confirmation judgment had been rendered after adversarial proceedings. The English court did not examine the merits of the Jordanian judgment but verified its finality, jurisdiction, and compatibility with English public policy.
The CJEU emphasized the Regulation’s goal of ensuring the free circulation of judgments and held that the nature or origin of the claim was irrelevant, provided the judgment had been or could have been issued through adversarial proceedings.
This broad reading raised concerns among scholars and practitioners alike: would this allow creditors to transform unenforceable non-EU judgments into EU judgments through Member States like England?
Photo by Ludovic Delot on Pexels.com Strategic Enforcement Opportunities Post-H Limited
Instead of framing H Limited as a loophole or risk, legal practitioners should consider its utility. The decision enables parties to obtain a local confirmation judgment in a Member State with favorable procedures—such as Ireland or the Netherlands—and use it as a springboard for EU-wide enforcement. This is particularly valuable in cases where direct exequatur might be unavailable or impractical. In an age of asset mobility, creditors need access to fast and effective enforcement paths. H Limited makes that possible.
The H Limited decision has been met with lively academic discussion. While it departs from the earlier precedent in Owens Bank, many view it as a pragmatic recognition of evolving litigation realities in a globalised legal environment. The ruling enables creditors to overcome the fragmented and often uncertain procedures for enforcing third-country judgments in the EU by using Member States that convert such judgments into new domestic titles. Rather than undermining the Brussels Ia regime, this may be seen as harmonising outcomes and promoting access to justice through practical solutions.
Of course, some commentators have raised concerns about potential abuse—such as ‘judgment laundering’ or the use of a ‘Trojan horse’ strategy to gain enforcement in stricter Member States via more lenient ones. However, these risks should be balanced against the need for cross-border commercial certainty and creditor protection. In a post-Brexit legal landscape, providing mechanisms for effective enforcement of foreign judgments is both timely and aligned with the EU’s broader goals of judicial cooperation and efficiency.
Even though the UK is no longer part of the Brussels Ia system, H Limited remains relevant. The mechanism it validated may now be replicated in other Member States with similar procedural frameworks.
The Two Conditions for H Limited to Apply
For a national enforcement decision to fall within H Limited‘s scope under Brussels Ia:
- It must be a new judgment on the foreign debt, not merely a declaration of enforceability (i.e., not an exequatur); and
- It must result from (or be capable of) adversarial proceedings.
This means the decision must involve a genuine judicial assessment, albeit limited, of the enforceability of the foreign judgment, with an opportunity for the debtor to be heard.
Candidate Jurisdictions for Enforcement ‘Through the Backdoor’ after Brexit
Tobias Lutzi[1] identifies four such jurisdictions:
1. Ireland: Irish courts enforce foreign money judgments through an action on the judgment debt. The process is adversarial and closely resembles the English method. This makes Ireland an attractive venue for crafting an EU-compatible judgment.
2. Cyprus: Following common law, Cypriot courts allow actions on foreign judgments, though enforcement is generally limited to debtors resident in Cyprus.
3. Netherlands: Dutch law requires a new action under Article 431(2) CCP when no treaty applies. The Dutch Supreme Court’s Gazprombank ruling allows recognition of a foreign judgment as res judicata, leading to a new enforceable Dutch judgment without reviewing the original merits.
4. Sweden: In limited cases, particularly where there is a jurisdiction agreement, Swedish courts may render a new decision based on a third-country judgment, provided due process was observed.
Photo by Ludovic Delot on Pexels.com The Role of Public Policy and Procedural Safeguards
While the CJEU invoked the public policy exception in Article 45 Brussels Ia as a safeguard, such mechanisms should be viewed as fallback protections rather than barriers to enforcement. The reality is that confirmation judgments, though based on third-country decisions, go through judicial review—however limited—and reflect a modern approach to balancing procedural safeguards with enforcement efficiency.
Rather than weakening national control, the system preserves key safeguards by allowing Member State courts to reject enforcement where core principles are violated. However, in most cases, courts are well-positioned to assess the enforceability of these judgments and support the free movement of justice across borders.
But this safeguard may prove ineffective. If the confirming court does not examine the substance (as is typical in confirmation judgments), the debtor’s only remedy is to raise a public policy objection—shifting the burden of proof and undermining national control over foreign judgment enforcement.
Implications and Outlook
H Limited represents a significant step forward in enabling the effective enforcement of third-country judgments within the EU. For judgment creditors, it creates a pragmatic route to convert judgments into enforceable titles within the internal market—without excessive duplication of legal proceedings.
This new pathway empowers parties who may otherwise face dead ends in enforcement due to fragmented national regimes. Rather than undermining legal coherence, it contributes to the progressive adaptation of EU private international law to transnational economic realities.
Looking ahead, Member States may wish to clarify procedural criteria, but the core opportunity created by H Limited—facilitating legitimate enforcement in complex international cases—deserves to be embraced.This raises complex questions:
- Should EU law permit such indirect enforcement of third-country judgments?
- Does the Regulation’s mutual trust principle extend to judgments enforcing non-EU judgments?
- Is further legislative reform required to clarify the scope of Brussels Ia?
Hypothetical Scenarios: Strategic Use of H Limited
To better understand how the H Limited ruling might be used in practice, it is helpful to consider two hypothetical case studies:
Scenario 1: Enforcement via Ireland
A creditor obtains a final and conclusive money judgment from a Canadian court. The debtor holds assets in Germany but is unlikely to satisfy the judgment voluntarily. Instead of seeking recognition directly in Germany—where exequatur requirements may pose challenges—the creditor initiates an action on the judgment in Ireland. The Irish court, applying common law principles, renders a new Irish judgment confirming the Canadian debt. Armed with this EU judgment, the creditor seeks automatic enforcement in Germany under Brussels Ia.
Scenario 2: Judgment Shopping in the Netherlands
A U.S. investor wins a judgment in New York against a French defendant but faces resistance in French courts due to procedural objections. The investor initiates proceedings in the Netherlands under Article 431(2) CCP. The Dutch court, recognizing the finality and enforceability of the U.S. judgment, issues a new Dutch decision granting the same relief. This Dutch decision, now an EU judgment, is enforced in France under Brussels Ia, bypassing domestic barriers.
These examples illustrate the strategic potential unlocked by the H Limited precedent. While national courts retain control through public policy exceptions, the decision invites creative litigation planning and challenges Member States to harmonize their responses to third-country enforcement strategies.
Doctrinal Debate and Legislative Perspectives
The doctrinal response to H Limited reflects a healthy debate about the future of enforcement within the EU. While some scholars advocate for caution, many practitioners see the decision as a welcome development that aligns legal practice with the realities of cross-border commerce and dispute resolution.
Rather than calling for restriction, some voices suggest harmonisation—ensuring that all Member States apply consistent criteria when converting third-state judgments into domestic ones. This could involve legislative fine-tuning or broader adoption of instruments like the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention.
Ultimately, the decision provides an opportunity to modernise EU law while safeguarding fairness, due process, and mutual trust across jurisdictions.
From a doctrinal standpoint, the CJEU’s expansive reading of Article 2(a) Brussels Ia has been accused of conflating form with substance. A judgment, under Brussels Ia, should arguably reflect a determination of rights and obligations under EU or Member State law, not a procedural validation of a third-country decision. This concern is particularly acute considering procedural disparities across jurisdictions. For example, a summary judgment based on res judicata may not guarantee the same level of procedural fairness or substantive review as a full exequatur.
These concerns have led some scholars and practitioners to call for legislative clarification. One option would be to amend Article 2(a) to explicitly exclude judgments that are based solely on foreign decisions. Another would be to create a distinct mechanism—akin to an enhanced exequatur—for recognising such hybrid judgments, with safeguards tailored to address public policy and procedural equity.
Furthermore, the Commission could consider a new initiative for harmonising the recognition of third-state judgments, inspired by international instruments such as the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention. Though the EU has signed the Convention, its implementation remains pending. Aligning Brussels Ia with Hague standards could offer a more coherent, transparent, and mutually respectful approach to cross-border recognition and enforcement beyond the EU.
Photo by Duu0161an Cvetanoviu0107 on Pexels.com Comparative Insights and Future Litigation Risks
From a comparative standpoint, H Limited reflects global best practices in judgment enforcement. Jurisdictions like Ireland and the Netherlands have long allowed actions on foreign judgments. Rather than promoting forum shopping, this flexibility strengthens the overall enforceability of international claims, enabling commercial actors to recover debts efficiently.
Rather than creating litigation risk, the decision highlights the need for proactive strategy. Creditors and their counsel must now consider a broader set of enforcement tools, including jurisdictional planning and asset targeting. This fosters a more integrated legal space, where legitimate claims can be pursued with confidence across borders.National courts remain fully empowered to filter abusive cases through existing legal safeguards. The key message of H Limited is not vulnerability, but opportunity—if supported by thoughtful legal design.
Moreover, the asymmetry between the recognition of intra-EU and third-state judgments raises concerns about legal predictability. A judgment creditor may, by exploiting favorable national laws, gain access to EU-wide enforcement without undergoing the substantive scrutiny required in the target jurisdiction. Such inconsistencies can disproportionately impact debtors, particularly in states with stricter procedural safeguards or different views on international jurisdiction.
From a litigation risk perspective, H Limited complicates cross-border asset protection strategies. Debtors may now face enforcement actions in jurisdictions they did not anticipate, initiated through indirect pathways. Litigants must increasingly monitor not only the original foreign proceedings but also any secondary enforcement attempts in Member States susceptible to confirmation-based recognition.
Practitioners must therefore advise clients not only on the merits of the primary case, but also on the enforcement landscape within the EU. Due diligence should include a mapping of potential Member States where a third-state judgment could be converted into an EU judgment. Strategic pre-litigation planning, including asset location analysis and jurisdictional risk assessment, will be more critical than ever.
Finally, given the CJEU’s reluctance to restrict the formal definition of ‘judgment’, national courts may need to play a more active role in applying public policy exceptions under Article 45 Brussels Ia. This creates an opportunity—and a burden—for Member State courts to safeguard procedural integrity while respecting the spirit of mutual recognition.
Conclusion
H Limited offers a pragmatic route for judgment creditors navigating the post-Brexit enforcement landscape. While safeguards such as public policy exceptions remain in place, the ruling encourages creditors to take a proactive, cross-jurisdictional approach. Legal advisors should include H Limited-based strategies in their enforcement playbook—especially when non-EU judgments are involved and strategic asset recovery across the EU is on the table.
The H Limited ruling signals a new chapter for the enforcement of third-country judgments in the EU. Rather than fearing its consequences, stakeholders should see it as a practical and principled evolution of the Union’s private international law framework.
Judgment creditors now have greater clarity and access to enforcement mechanisms. This enhances legal certainty, promotes efficiency, and aligns with the cross-border realities of modern commercial litigation.With appropriate procedural safeguards in place, and possible future legislative refinements, H Limited has the potential to serve as a model for integrating external judgments into the EU’s internal legal space.
Judgment creditors, especially after Brexit, may continue to exploit this route through carefully selected jurisdictions. Whether this amounts to ‘judgment laundering’ or practical legal strategy depends on one’s view of legal coherence and the integrity of EU private international law.
Further judicial and legislative clarification is needed. Until then, H Limited remains a powerful—if controversial—tool in the arsenal of transnational enforcement.
This article examines the practical implications of the CJEU’s decision in H Limited, a case that reshapes how non-EU judgments can be enforced across the European Union. Rather than a purely academic controversy, H Limited offers real-world tools that litigators and creditors can deploy to navigate complex enforcement environments. With post-Brexit uncertainties still unfolding, this decision opens new possibilities for accessing the EU enforcement framework via Member States that convert foreign judgments into domestic orders.
[1] Lutzi, T. (2024). What remains of H Limited? Recognition and enforcement of non-EU judgments after Brexit. Journal of Private International Law, 20(3), 651–667. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441048.2024.2439152
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🇪🇸 Impacto de las sanciones de la UE contra Rusia en la ejecución de sentencias y laudos arbitrales
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com A version of this post is also available in English
Introducción
La invasión de Ucrania por Rusia desencadenó un extenso régimen de sanciones de la Unión Europea contra personas físicas y jurídicas vinculadas al régimen ruso.
Estas medidas restrictivas incluyen la congelación de activos (fondos y recursos económicos) de los sancionados y la prohibición de poner fondos a su disposición, directa o indirectamente.
Este marco legal plantea interrogantes sobre cómo ejecutar sentencias judiciales y laudos arbitrales comerciales cuando una de las partes está sancionada, ya sea como acreedora (a su favor) o como deudora (en su contra).
A continuación, se analiza la base jurídica de estas restricciones, ejemplos recientes, obstáculos procesales/doctrinales y consideraciones prácticas para tribunales y árbitros al enfrentar la ejecución en tales circunstancias.
Base jurídica de las restricciones de la UE
El régimen de sanciones de la UE derivado del conflicto en Ucrania se basa en decisiones y reglamentos del Consejo que son de aplicación directa en todos los Estados miembros.
Destacan la Decisión 2014/145/PESC y el Reglamento (UE) 269/2014, ambos del 17 de marzo de 2014, promulgados tras la anexión de Crimea.
Estas normas, junto con sus sucesivas modificaciones y paquetes de sanciones posteriores a 2022, congelan todos los fondos y recursos económicos pertenecientes o controlados por las personas y entidades designadas, e impiden poner cualquier fondo o recurso económico a disposición de dichas personas o en su beneficio.
En términos prácticos, ningún pago, transferencia u otro beneficio económico puede realizarse a favor de un sancionado mientras dure la medida.
Las exenciones o derogaciones previstas por la propia normativa permiten ciertos actos con fondos congelados, pero bajo estrictas condiciones y con autorización previa de la autoridad competente de cada Estado miembro.
En particular, el artículo 5 del Reglamento 269/2014 faculta a las autoridades a autorizar la liberación de fondos congelados para dar efecto a decisiones judiciales o arbitrales, siempre que se cumplan todos estos requisitos acumulativos:
- Origen de la decisión: que los fondos o recursos objeto de la ejecución provengan de una decisión arbitral anterior a la inclusión del sancionado en la lista, o de una resolución judicial o administrativa dictada en la UE (o ejecutiva en un Estado miembro) dictada antes o después de la fecha de la sanción. (Nótese que la normativa distingue entre laudos arbitrales –que deben ser previos a la sanción– y sentencias judiciales de la UE, que pueden ser posteriores, lo cual genera un trato diferenciado criticado por juristas)
- Destino de los fondos: que los fondos liberados se utilicen exclusivamente para satisfacer las reclamaciones reconocidas en dicha decisión (por ejemplo, pagar la cantidad ordenada por la sentencia), sin exceder lo establecido por las leyes aplicables sobre los derechos de los acreedores.
- Beneficiario final: que la decisión no beneficie a ninguna persona o entidad que figure en la lista de sancionados. Es decir, la autorización no procederá si el pago beneficiaría al propio sancionado, pues ello equivaldría a poner fondos a su disposición en contra de la prohibición central del régimen.
- Orden público: que el reconocimiento o ejecución de la resolución no sea contrario al orden público del Estado miembro en cuestión. Esta cláusula salvaguarda la potestad de los tribunales de denegar ejecuciones que vulneren principios jurídicos fundamentales, dentro de los cuales se incluye el respeto a las sanciones internacionales como política pública.
Adicionalmente, el Reglamento 269/2014 prevé ciertas operaciones automáticas con fondos congelados.
Por ejemplo, no prohíbe que un tercero deposite fondos en una cuenta congelada de un sancionado para cumplir una obligación, siempre que esos fondos queden inmovilizados en la misma cuenta inmediatamente.
Las entidades financieras deben informar sin demora a la autoridad competente sobre cualquier abono de este tipo a cuentas congeladas.
Ejecución de resoluciones a favor de personas sancionadas
Photo by asim alnamat on Pexels.com Cuando la sentencia o laudo favorece a una persona sancionada (es decir, el sancionado es acreedor de una suma o remedio), surgen importantes limitaciones.
La regla general de la UE prohíbe entregar fondos o bienes al sancionado, de modo que incluso si un tribunal reconoce la validez de la reclamación, la ejecución material se ve bloqueada.
Los tribunales europeos deben verificar en cada caso que la ejecución o reconocimiento de un laudo no contravenga las sanciones vigentes, por ejemplo, permitiendo indirectamente que fondos lleguen a manos de un designado.
Esta verificación se realiza atendiendo a las circunstancias en la fecha en que se decide la ejecución, exigiendo indicios firmes de que dicha ejecución supondría una infracción del régimen de sanciones.
En la práctica, si la ejecución implicara pagar o transferir activos al acreedor sancionado, no se podrá completar libremente.
Dos escenarios son posibles bajo la normativa actual:
(1) que se deniegue el reconocimiento o la ejecución por considerarla contraria al orden público internacional (por violar las sanciones), o
(2) que el pago se consigne en una cuenta congelada del sancionado, cumpliendo formalmente la sentencia pero sin que el beneficiario pueda acceder a los fondos.
Este segundo escenario, contemplado en el artículo 7 del Reglamento 269/2014, permite al deudor liberarse de la obligación de pago depositando el dinero en la cuenta bloqueada del acreedor sancionado, con la garantía de que dicho monto permanece inmovilizado.
De este modo, se evita “ponerlo a disposición” efectiva del sancionado hasta que este sea eventualmente retirado de la lista o obtenga una licencia específica.
Por tanto, un acreedor sancionado se enfrentará a serias dificultades para lograr el fruto de una sentencia o laudo a su favor en territorio de la UE.
Las autoridades no autorizarán excepciones que le permitan el cobro mientras siga listado.
Desde la perspectiva del orden público europeo, hacer cumplir una resolución que ignore las sanciones equivaldría a vulnerar una norma imperativa, lo que justificaría su denegación.
En efecto, un laudo arbitral que otorgue un pago a un individuo sancionado podría considerarse contrario al orden público en un país sancionador (por no dar efecto a la sanción). Como señala la guía sobre la materia de la UIA, “un laudo… puede ser considerado contrario al orden público… por el país sancionador (cuando el laudo no da efecto a una sanción)”, lo que aplica justamente al supuesto de acreedor sancionado.
En suma, mientras la designación esté vigente, la ejecución en su favor estará virtualmente congelada – el sancionado sólo podría aspirar a que sus fondos queden depositados en custodia hasta nueva orden.
Ejecución de resoluciones contra personas sancionadas
Photo by Julius Silver on Pexels.com En el caso opuesto, cuando la sentencia o laudo es en contra de una persona sancionada (es decir, el sancionado es el deudor obligado a pagar o a entregar activos), también surgen obstáculos, aunque de naturaleza distinta.
Aquí, el beneficiario del fallo no está sancionado, pero los activos con los que debería cobrar están congelados por ley. Esto significa que cualquier embargo, pago forzoso o transferencia desde el patrimonio del deudor sancionado requiere autorización para no vulnerar la prohibición de movilizar sus fondos.
La vía para posibilitar estas ejecuciones es solicitar a la autoridad competente (p. ej., Ministerio de Finanzas o Banco Central nacional) una licencia o derogación al amparo de las cláusulas del Reglamento 269/2014 antes descritas.
Dicha autorización sólo se concederá si se cumplen estrictamente las condiciones del artículo 5: en particular, que la resolución se dictó antes de la sanción (en caso de laudos arbitrales) o incluso después si es una sentencia de la UE, y crucialmente, que el sancionado no sea beneficiario sino obligado al pago.
Si el acreedor demuestra que su crédito deriva de una decisión judicial/arbitral válida y anterior (o no relacionada con la sanción) y que los fondos recuperados no irán al sancionado, la autoridad podrá autorizar liberar el importe exclusivamente para satisfacer esa deuda.
Además, la ejecución no debe suponer nada contrario al orden público nacional, aunque usualmente obligar a pagar una deuda legítima no lo sería, siempre que se respeten las sanciones.
Aun con este mecanismo, existen trabas prácticas.
- El Reglamento en su versión actual establece una diferencia temporal: si el deudor fue sancionado antes de emitirse el laudo arbitral, no es posible obtener autorización para liberar fondos con base en ese laudo. Esto ha sido criticado por generar una desigualdad frente a las sentencias judiciales (que sí podrían ejecutarse aunque la sanción fuera previa).
- De hecho, instituciones arbitrales europeas han alertado de un “riesgo significativo de obstáculo fáctico” para ejecutar laudos en tales casos. Esto significa que un acreedor con un laudo emitido después de que su contraparte fuera incluida en la lista de sanciones podría quedarse sin vía efectiva de cobro, al menos hasta que se reforme la normativa o se levanten las sanciones. Paradójicamente –como ha señalado la doctrina–, esto puede ocurrir incluso cuando el deudor es el sancionado, ya que se le impide pagar con sus fondos congelados, frustrando al acreedor no sancionado.
- En los casos en que sí procede la autorización (por ejemplo, laudo anterior a la sanción, o sentencia judicial europea), el proceso de ejecución se enlentece y complejiza. El acreedor normalmente deberá primero obtener el reconocimiento de la sentencia o laudo en la jurisdicción donde se encuentran los activos (si es extranjero), y luego solicitar la licencia a la autoridad nacional aportando las pruebas de que se cumplen las condiciones legales. Durante este tiempo, los activos permanecen congelados y no pueden entregarse. Solo una vez concedida la licencia, el embargo o pago podrá materializarse legalmente. Si la autorización es denegada, el tribunal no permitirá la ejecución, ya que obligaría a violar el Reglamento comunitario que es de aplicación preferente.
- No obstante, los acreedores han buscado soluciones creativas. En Irlanda, por ejemplo, se ha logrado que tribunales nombren administradores o liquidadores sobre empresas rusas sancionadas, lo que ha llevado a “descongelar” ciertos activos al romperse el control del sancionado sobre los mismos. En un caso de 2023 (GTLK Europe), el High Court irlandés consideró que la designación de liquidadores a una filial de empresa rusa rebatiía la presunción de control del sancionado, permitiendo excluir a la compañía de la lista y liberando activos para los acreedores. Este ejemplo refleja que, más allá de la ejecución singular de sentencias, existen vías concursales o estructurales para sortear parcialmente el efecto de las sanciones en la satisfacción de créditos, aunque dependen de las circunstancias y del criterio judicial.
Obstáculos procesales y doctrinales
Photo by Lubov Tandit on Pexels.com La intersección entre sanciones y ejecución forzosa plantea cuestiones jurídicas complejas.
Un primer obstáculo es de naturaleza normativa: las sanciones de la UE actúan como normas de orden público de aplicación inmediata, lo que obliga a jueces y árbitros a considerarlas incluso si las partes no las han invocado.
- Por ejemplo, un tribunal que conozca de la ejecución debe analizar de oficio si cumplir la sentencia supondría infringir las restricciones internacionales, so pena de vulnerar el orden público comunitario.
- De igual modo, en sede arbitral se discute si los árbitros tienen el deber de dictar un laudo que sea ejecutable (y por tanto conforme a la legalidad vigente). Aunque no es obligatorio que el árbitro garantice la ejecución, es prudente que tome en consideración las sanciones como normas imperativas que podrían impedir la eficacia del laudo.
Un obstáculo doctrinal relevante ha sido la diferenciación entre decisiones judiciales y laudos arbitrales en el régimen de derogaciones.
Actualmente, una sentencia dictada por un órgano de la UE después de impuestas las sanciones puede dar lugar a una autorización de pago, mientras que un laudo arbitral en la misma situación no.
Como se ha indicado, esta dicotomía se ha debatido intensamente: las instituciones arbitrales han elevado cartas conjuntas a la Comisión Europea señalando la desigualdad de trato y solicitando clarificaciones o ajustes normativos.
Desde la perspectiva del arbitraje internacional, que un laudo no pueda ejecutarse por razones ajenas al mérito de la disputa (sino por el momento de la sanción) introduce incertidumbre jurídica y podría incentivar a partes sancionadas a demorar procedimientos para escapar del alcance del art. 5(1) del Reglamento 269/2014.
Otro escollo procesal es la necesidad de conjugar el deber de cumplimiento de sentencias (obligación de resultados de cosa juzgada) con el deber de cumplimiento de sanciones internacionales.
Los tribunales de los Estados miembros se encuentran en una posición delicada: deben velar por la efectividad de las resoluciones judiciales y arbitrales (muchas veces amparadas por tratados como la Convención de Nueva York de 1958), pero simultáneamente tienen el mandato legal de no permitir operaciones prohibidas por las sanciones de la UE.
Esto se traduce en posibles suspensiones o demoras en el trámite de ejecución, mientras se obtienen las licencias pertinentes o se clarifica la situación del sancionado.
Incluso, podría dar pie a litigios paralelos: por ejemplo, impugnaciones por parte del sancionado alegando fuerza mayor o ilicitud sobrevenida de la prestación, o por parte del acreedor alegando que la negativa a ejecutar vulnera sus derechos.
Hasta ahora, la balanza se ha inclinado a priorizar el cumplimiento riguroso de las sanciones, dada su naturaleza de orden público internacional.
Finalmente, existe el riesgo de incoherencias entre jurisdicciones.
Si un laudo o sentencia contra un sancionado no puede ejecutarse en la UE, el acreedor podría intentar en foros no sujetos a las sanciones (u obtener medidas en terceros países). Esto genera posibles tensiones de reconocimiento recíproco.
Asimismo, si en un futuro se levantan las sanciones, los acreedores podrían apresurarse a ejecutar en cuanto la persona salga de la lista, lo que exige a los tribunales estar preparados para desbloquear activos rápidamente y de forma coordinada con las autoridades financieras.
Ejemplos recientes relevantes
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Diversos casos ilustran cómo se aplican estos principios en la práctica reciente, incluso más allá de las sanciones contra Rusia:
- Verificación judicial en Francia (caso DNO Yemen): En 2021, la Corte de Apelación de París examinó un laudo que condenaba a empresas occidentales a pagar daños al Ministerio de Petróleo de Yemen, cuyo titular estaba sujeto a sanciones de la UE:
- El tribunal francés estableció que no procedía ejecutar el laudo si eso implicaba poner fondos, directa o indirectamente, a disposición de personas designadas en la lista de sanciones.
- Ordenó verificar si los beneficiarios reales del pago podían estar controlados por individuos sancionados, rehusando la ejecución en caso de cualquier contravención de las medidas restrictivas.
- Este caso (planteado al TJUE como asunto C-842/24) subraya la prioridad absoluta de las sanciones sobre la obligación de cumplir incluso un laudo arbitral internacional.
- Arbitraje y sanciones rusas (caso Stankoimport vs. Reibel, Suecia 2023): Un arbitraje administrado en Estocolmo enfrentó un contrato de exportación frustrado por las sanciones de la UE contra Rusia (Reglamento 833/2014).
- En su laudo, los árbitros negaron indemnizaciones por lucro cesante al exportador ruso sancionado, considerando que habría supuesto obtener una ventaja de una transacción prohibida, pero sí ordenaron el reembolso del pago anticipado más intereses al comprador europeo.
- La razón: devolver el dinero de un negocio no realizado simplemente restablecía el estado previo y no constituía un pago prohibido por el artículo 11 del Reglamento 833/2014.
- Este laudo muestra cómo los árbitros intentan equilibrar el respeto a las sanciones con la equidad entre las partes. Sin embargo, la parte perdedora (Reibel) impugnó el laudo ante los tribunales suecos alegando que su ejecución violaría el orden público, cuestión también remitida al TJUE (asunto C-802/24).
- Licencias para acreedores no sancionados: En Irlanda, acreedores de empresas rusas sancionadas han acudido a los tribunales locales para reconocer sentencias extranjeras y luego tramitar una autorización conforme al artículo 5 del Reglamento 269/2014.
- Un ejemplo es el caso de arrendamientos de aviones a compañías rusas estatales (JSC GTLK): los arrendadores obtuvieron órdenes judiciales y acto seguido solicitaron al Banco Central de Irlanda permiso para recibir los pagos debidos con cargo a activos congelados.
- Estos casos, aunque no siempre publicitados, evidencian que las autoridades están recibiendo solicitudes de derogación y, bajo estricta supervisión, han permitido liberar fondos para cumplir decisiones judiciales en favor de terceros inocentes (no sancionados).
- Eso sí, cada solicitud toma semanas o meses y requiere demostrar el encaje exacto en las excepciones legales.
- Respuesta institucional (Declaración conjunta 2023): Preocupadas por las dificultades en la ejecución de laudos, varias instituciones arbitrales europeas (SCC, DIS, VIAC, etc.) emitieron en enero de 2023 una declaración conjunta dirigida a la Comisión Europea.
- En ella, señalaron la desprotección de los acreedores arbitrales cuando el deudor es sancionado tras iniciarse el arbitraje, instando a reformar el artículo 5(1)(a) del Reglamento 269/2014 para permitir excepciones también en esos casos.
- Esta iniciativa demuestra la constante adaptación del marco legal sancionador para mitigar efectos no deseados sobre la resolución de disputas.
Consideraciones prácticas para tribunales y árbitros
Para los tribunales nacionales, la presencia de un régimen sancionador supone que la ejecución de sentencias y laudos ya no es un trámite puramente civil o mercantil, sino que involucra aspectos de cumplimiento regulatorio internacional.
En la práctica, los jueces deben:
- Comprobar de oficio las listas de sanciones y la posible implicación de las partes o beneficiarios. Si una parte está listada, el juez ha de condicionar o negar cualquier medida que suponga transferirle valor económico. Esta diligencia incluye analizar estructuras corporativas para detectar beneficiarios finales sancionados (por ejemplo, si el cobro podría ir a una filial controlada por un oligarca designado).
- Coordinar con las autoridades competentes del Estado miembro (normalmente los Ministerios de Hacienda o Economía) antes de ordenar transferencias de activos congelados.
- Los jueces pueden requerir a los acreedores que obtengan la licencia pertinente y presentar evidencia de ello en el proceso de ejecución.
- En muchos casos, el tribunal suspenderá el procedimiento ejecutivo hasta que se presente la autorización administrativa que permita mover los fondos congelados legalmente.
- Esto agrega una capa procedimental: el juicio no termina con la sentencia, sino con la obtención de la luz verde del regulador de sanciones.
- Asegurar que el pago se realice de forma conforme a la ley:
- Por ejemplo, si se autoriza una ejecución contra un sancionado, el tribunal puede disponer que el pago del deudor se ingrese directamente en una cuenta controlada por una entidad pública o congelada, y no en manos libres del acreedor, garantizando así el seguimiento del dinero.
- Asimismo, las instituciones financieras involucradas deben ser notificadas de la situación para que cumplan con su obligación de bloquear los fondos inmediatamente tras la transacción.
- Documentar la razón de cualquier denegatoria de ejecución basada en sanciones, para fines de posibles revisiones o comunicaciones diplomáticas.
- Dado que estas situaciones son relativamente novedosas, los jueces tienden a fundamentar ampliamente cómo la ejecución atentaría contra el orden público internacional (i.e., contravendría un Reglamento UE) para dejar claro que no se trata de ignorar una sentencia sino de acatar una norma superior.
Para los árbitros y las partes en arbitraje, las sanciones también imponen ajustes estratégicos:
- Debida diligencia en designaciones: Desde el inicio de un arbitraje comercial, conviene verificar si alguna de las partes (o sus propietarios mayoritarios) está en las listas de sanciones.
- Si es así, las instituciones arbitrales deben evaluar si pueden administrar el caso (algunas adoptaron protocolos para casos con sancionados) y las partes deben prepararse para posibles obstáculos en costas, pagos de honorarios y, por supuesto, en la fase de ejecución del laudo.
- Argumentación jurídica sobre sanciones: Es recomendable que durante el arbitraje se aborde expresamente el impacto de las sanciones en las obligaciones contractuales y en las posibles reparaciones.
- Los árbitros pueden invitar a las partes a presentar alegaciones adicionales sobre cómo las sanciones afectan la ejecución del laudo final.
- Esto permite al tribunal arbitral tomar una decisión informada, por ejemplo, modulando el tipo de remedio otorgado (como vimos en el caso Stankoimport vs. Reibel, donde se optó por la restitución del pago en vez de daños lucrativos para no violar las sanciones).
- Laudo con miras a la ejecutabilidad: Si bien no es función del árbitro garantizar la ejecución, en la práctica muchos tribunales arbitrales buscarán dictar laudos que no sean meramente simbólicos. Esto puede implicar no condenar a prestaciones imposibles o ilícitas bajo sanciones vigentes.
- Por ejemplo, un laudo podría abstenerse de ordenar a una parte sancionada que entregue un bien cuya exportación está prohibida, sustituyéndolo por otra forma de compensación que no infrinja la normativa.
- Igualmente, el laudo podría reconocer que cualquier pago debido a un sancionado quedará sujeto a las leyes de control de activos, reflejando así la realidad legal para evitar posteriores choques con tribunales estatales.
- Comunicación con instituciones y terceros: En ocasiones, las instituciones arbitrales actúan como puente con las autoridades para esclarecer dudas (como sucedió con la Comisión Europea y el alcance de las sanciones financieras, que originalmente generó inquietud sobre si impedía administrar arbitrajes con entidades públicas rusas). Las partes también deben estar preparadas para involucrar a sus gobiernos nacionales si se requiere alguna gestión diplomática o excepción especial, especialmente en arbitrajes de alto perfil o inversión extranjera.
En todos los casos, un principio esencial es la transparencia y previsión: las empresas y particulares deben ser conscientes de que ganar un pleito contra (o a favor de) un sancionado puede no traducirse en un resultado efectivo inmediato.
Es aconsejable buscar asesoramiento especializado en sanciones internacionales durante todo el proceso de litigio o arbitraje, de modo que la estrategia legal incorpore desde el principio las peculiaridades de este régimen (por ejemplo, recabando pruebas sobre fechas de listados, solicitando licencias con antelación, o estructurando acuerdos de forma que los pagos se canalicen legalmente).
Conclusiones
La guerra de Ucrania y las consecuentes sanciones de la UE a Rusia han introducido una capa de complejidad sin precedentes en la ejecución transfronteriza de resoluciones judiciales y arbitrales.
El fundamento jurídico de las sanciones –congelación de activos y prohibición de puesta a disposición de fondos– prevalece sobre las reglas habituales de cumplimiento de sentencias, configurando un verdadero límite de orden público internacional. En síntesis:
- Si el sancionado es acreedor, la ejecución a su favor quedará suspendida o neutralizada: no podrá recibir efectivamente pagos ni bienes mientras siga designado, más allá de ver sus derechos reconocidos nominalmente o depositados en cuentas bloqueadas.
- Si el sancionado es deudor, el acreedor enfrentará demoras y trámites adicionales para cobrar, debiendo encajar su reclamación en las excepciones reglamentarias y obtener la venia de las autoridades estatales. Incluso así, ciertas situaciones (como laudos posteriores a la sanción) permanecen sin solución clara bajo la normativa vigente.
- Los tribunales nacionales han adoptado un rol vigilante, rehusando ejecuciones que vulneren sanciones y requiriendo estricta prueba de cumplimiento normativo para autorizar cualquier movimiento de activos congelados.
- Los árbitros y las instituciones arbitrales están adaptando sus prácticas para garantizar que los procedimientos no se vean frustrados por sanciones –ya sea ajustando el alcance de los laudos o promoviendo cambios regulatorios–, pero reconocen que ciertas disputas pueden carecer de una vía de ejecución efectiva inmediata debido al régimen sancionador.
En última instancia, la eficacia de una sentencia o laudo en este contexto depende no solo de consideraciones jurídico-privadas, sino también de factores geopolíticos y de cumplimiento normativo internacional.
Hasta que las sanciones contra Rusia se levanten o se refinen las excepciones legales, la ejecución frente a personas sancionadas requiere un enfoque multidisciplinar y precavido, combinando la pericia litigiosa con el conocimiento exhaustivo del régimen de sanciones de la UE para navegar con éxito entre ambos mundos
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Mareva Injunction: 50 Years of Freezing Assets
Lee esta entrada en español
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Mareva injunction, a landmark remedy in the common law tradition.
Essentially, it is a court order that prohibits the defendant from disposing of their assets during proceedings—preventing them from hiding or transferring them out of the jurisdiction before a judgment is rendered.
In simple terms, it’s a way to freeze the defendant’s assets to ensure there’s something to enforce against if the claimant wins.
Also known today as a freezing order, the Mareva injunction revolutionized English law in 1975 and its impact has since spread far beyond the UK.
Historical Origins in the UK
Until the mid-1970s, English courts lacked a tool equivalent to civil law’s asset freezing remedies. Creditors could not secure assets ahead of judgment. That changed in 1975, with two key cases:
- Nippon Yusen Kaisha v. Karageorgis (May 1975):
- A Japanese shipping company sought to freeze funds in a London bank account.
- Initially refused due to lack of precedent, the order was later granted by Lord Denning, invoking a general statutory provision allowing injunctions where “just and convenient.” He reasoned that the law needed to evolve to prevent injustice.
- Mareva Compania Naviera SA v. International Bulkcarriers SA (June 1975):
- Only weeks later, a similar case came before the courts.
- Again, Lord Denning granted the injunction—this time ex parte—establishing the precedent.
- The remedy was quickly dubbed a “Mareva injunction” in reference to this case.
Lord Denning called it “the greatest piece of judicial law reform in my time.” For the first time, English courts could secure assets before trial—like France’s saisie conservatoire or Spain’s embargo preventivo. Later reforms, including the 1998 Civil Procedure Rules, officially renamed it “Freezing Order.”
What is a Mareva Injunction and How Does It Work?
A Mareva injunction is an equitable, in personam remedy: it binds the defendant and forbids asset transfers under threat of contempt of court. Unlike traditional asset seizures (which operate in rem), the Mareva order focuses on personal compliance.
Although technically addressed only to the defendant, courts often alert third parties—such as banks—to ensure practical enforcement.
To obtain a Mareva injunction, the claimant must demonstrate:
- A good arguable case on the merits;
- A real risk that the defendant will dissipate assets;
- Full and frank disclosure (especially in ex parte applications);
- An undertaking in damages, in case the injunction is later deemed unjustified.
This remedy is powerful and intrusive. When paired with disclosure orders (forcing the defendant to reveal their assets) and Anton Piller orders (evidence preservation searches), it becomes a procedural “nuclear weapon.”
To prevent abuse, courts permit exceptions (e.g., for living or business expenses) and may exempt low-value assets to preserve liquidity.
Evolution and Reach in the Common Law World
After 1975, the Mareva injunction quickly gained traction in the United Kingdom and other common law countries.
British courts extended its reach throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ultimately allowing worldwide freezing orders that could apply to the defendant’s assets regardless of location.
These global orders have a distinctive extraterritorial nature: the English court instructs the defendant not to dispose of assets anywhere in the world, relying on the defendant’s voluntary compliance (under threat of sanctions for contempt) and the cooperation of foreign courts to enforce the order when necessary.
For instance, the High Court in London may freeze a defendant’s bank accounts not only in England, but also funds in Switzerland or properties in Spain, provided there is evidence of risk of dissipation.
Naturally, this raises challenges of cross-border legal cooperation, but worldwide freezing orders have become a powerful tool in international fraud and commercial litigation, ensuring that debtors cannot vanish with the money.
Today, the Mareva injunction — now commonly referred to as a freezing order — is a widely recognized remedy across the common law world.
Countries such as Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Nigeria have adopted similar orders in their own civil procedures.
It is now standard practice for lawyers in common law jurisdictions to request a freezing order when they fear the defendant might dissipate the assets before judgment.
Thanks to five decades of judicial practice, detailed protocols have developed on how to apply for a Mareva properly — including the duty of full and frank disclosure — and on how to calibrate the order to be effective yet proportionate.
Its use has even been codified in legislation: since 1998, the Civil Procedure Rules in England formally recognize it under the name freezing order, with practical guidance available to courts and practitioners alike.
It is worth noting that this English innovation was actually inspired by interim measures long established in civil law jurisdictions.
As Lord Denning remarked in 1975, many countries had long allowed pre-judgment asset freezes — citing, for example, the French saisie conservatoire — while England had fallen behind for more than a century.
The Mareva injunction, therefore, represented something of a common law catch-up with civil law traditions. But it introduced some distinctive features of its own: notably, its in personam nature (it binds the defendant, not the asset) and its flexibility to apply to all kinds of assets, even those outside the jurisdiction.
These characteristics have made it especially powerful in a globalized legal environment.
Influence on Civil Law Jurisdictions – The Spanish Perspective
The reach of the Mareva injunction has extended far beyond its English roots. Its success sparked discussions about adopting similar tools in civil law systems, even though those jurisdictions already have traditional provisional measures.
In continental Europe, pre-judgment asset freezes have long been part of the legal arsenal, so the idea of “freezing” assets before judgment was not unfamiliar. In Spain, for example, the embargo preventivo (a precautionary seizure of assets under the Civil Procedure Act) serves the same purpose: securing the defendant’s assets to ensure enforcement of a future judgment.
In legal literature, the freezing injunction is often equated with the embargo or retention measures of civil law.
The requirements for granting an embargo preventivo in Spain — fumus boni iuris, periculum in mora, and a security bond — closely mirror those of a Mareva. Spanish law even permits inaudita parte (without prior notice to the defendant) when urgency or risk justifies it, echoing the ex parte nature of many Mareva applications.
So, what does the Mareva injunction contribute to systems like Spain’s? Rather than introducing a new concept, its influence lies in its scope and execution:
- Global reach: English courts developed the worldwide Mareva injunction to freeze assets globally — something not easily achieved through traditional continental mechanisms.
- In Spain, a judge’s jurisdiction is typically limited to assets within national territory (unless supported by international cooperation).
- The common law’s personal injunction with extraterritorial effects has inspired discussions on how to enhance the effectiveness of cross-border freezing measures within European and international frameworks.
- Judicial cooperation across borders: The Mareva injunction has influenced supranational legislative developments, such as the EU Regulation No. 655/2014, which established the European Account Preservation Order (EAPO).
- This instrument allows creditors to freeze bank accounts across EU Member States through a streamlined and unified procedure, safeguarding cross-border claims.
- While not a full equivalent of the Mareva (as it only targets bank accounts), it shares the urgent, preventive, and cross-border spirit of the Mareva remedy.
- We can observe a clear convergence: civil law adopting more aggressive measures inspired by Mareva’s success, while common law systems created these tools to catch up with civil law safeguards.
- Conceptual diffusion:
- In legal practice, lawyers and judges across Spanish-speaking jurisdictions have become increasingly familiar with the term Mareva injunction in the context of international litigation.
- In commercial arbitrations, for instance, it’s not uncommon to hear references to “getting a Mareva” when there are fears of asset dissipation.
- Even though a Spanish court would issue a formal embargo preventivo, the strategy and ex parte urgency reflect clear Mareva influence. Some Spanish appellate rulings have even referenced Mareva-style reasoning, particularly when cooperating with foreign courts.
A Global Legacy
In short, civil law systems did not need to copy the Mareva injunction because they already had similar instruments.
However, they have certainly taken note of its efficacy, adopting some of its features: speed, surprise, and international scope.
Spain and other continental jurisdictions have reinforced their interim protection mechanisms to ensure no debtor can quietly slip away with the money.
Fifty years after its creation, the Mareva injunction has secured a place in the global toolbox of interim measures, proving that a smart legal invention can transcend traditions and borders.
Has or could a Mareva injunction have changed the outcome of one of your cases?
In an increasingly globalised world, perhaps it’s time to rethink the effectiveness—and the cross-border harmonisation—of interim measures in Europe and beyond.
If you work in international litigation or asset recovery and would like to explore similar mechanisms in your jurisdiction, I’d be glad to exchange views or help assess applicable strategies.
Feel free to get in touch or share your thoughts in the comments.
In the meantime—happy 50th, Mareva Injunction!
- Nippon Yusen Kaisha v. Karageorgis (May 1975):
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🇪🇸 Mareva Injunction: 50 años congelando activos
Read this post in English
Este año se celebra el 50º aniversario de la Mareva injunction, una figura jurídica clave del derecho anglosajón.
Se trata, básicamente, de una orden judicial que prohíbe al demandado disponer de sus bienes durante un proceso, impidiéndole ocultarlos o sacarlos de la jurisdicción antes de que haya sentencia.
En términos sencillos, es un mecanismo para “congelar” los activos del demandado y asegurar que, si el demandante gana el juicio, haya bienes sobre los cuales hacer efectiva la sentencia.
Este tipo de medida cautelar (también llamada freezing order en inglés) supuso una revolución en el derecho inglés en 1975, y su impacto se ha extendido mucho más allá de su país de origen.
Origen histórico en Reino Unido
Hasta mediados de los años 1970, las cortes inglesas no tenían una herramienta equivalente al embargo preventivo que sí existía en otras jurisdicciones continentales. Es decir, un acreedor en Inglaterra no podía inmovilizar los bienes de un deudor antes de obtener un juicio a su favor.
Todo cambió en 1975, cuando ocurrieron dos casos decisivos en rápida sucesión:
- Nippon Yusen Kaisha v. Karageorgis (mayo 1975): En este caso, una naviera japonesa reclamaba pagos pendientes de un contrato de fletamento:
- Al descubrir que los demandados tenían fondos en un banco de Londres, pidió urgentemente congelar esos activos para que no los transfirieran fuera del país.
- Inicialmente la petición fue denegada por falta de precedentes —estas medidas eran desconocidas en el derecho inglés hasta entonces—, pero en apelación el legendario juez Lord Denning dio un paso audaz.
- Amparándose en una disposición legal general que permitía a los tribunales dictar interdictos “cuando fuese justo y conveniente”, Denning argumentó que “ya era hora de revisar” la práctica tradicional y concedió la orden de congelación de fondos.
- En palabras del propio Denning, “no hay razón para que el tribunal no otorgue una orden como la solicitada… Si no se concede, es muy probable que esos dineros sean sacados de la jurisdicción”.
- Mareva Compania Naviera SA v. International Bulkcarriers SA (junio 1975): Solo cuatro semanas después, otro caso similar llegó ante los tribunales:
- La naviera Mareva reclamaba un último pago incumplido de un contrato, mientras la parte demandada había anunciado el cese de sus operaciones.
- Animados por el precedente inmediato, los abogados de Mareva solicitaron ex parte (sin oír al demandado) una orden para congelar los activos del deudor.
- De nuevo Lord Denning, en apelación, confirmó la concesión de la medida.
- Aunque ambos casos se tramitaron inicialmente sin audiencia de la otra parte (lo que significaba que formalmente no sentaban jurisprudencia vinculante en ese momento), marcaron el nacimiento de la “Mareva injunction” como figura jurídica.
- Tanto es así que esta segunda sentencia le dio nombre: desde entonces, en el mundo legal anglosajón se empezó a hablar de “Mareva injunctions” para referirse a estos novedosos interdictos de congelación de activos.
Lord Denning describió aquel hito de 1975 como “la mayor reforma jurídica creada por los jueces en mi tiempo”.
Su innovación permitió a los tribunales ingleses, por primera vez en más de 150 años, actuar como sus contrapartes de Europa continental y asegurar bienes antes del juicio (lo que en Francia se llama saisie conservatoire y en España embargo preventivo).
Desde entonces, la Mareva injunction evolucionó rápidamente: otras sentencias posteriores refinaron sus condiciones de aplicación y, en 1998, la reforma de las reglas de procedimiento civil británicas la renombró oficialmente como “Freezing Order” (orden de congelación).
¿En qué consiste y cómo funciona?
La Mareva injunction es una medida cautelar de naturaleza equitativa (propia del Equity inglés) que opera in personam: es una orden dirigida al demandado, prohibiéndole disponer de sus bienes bajo apercibimiento de desacato al tribunal.
A diferencia de un embargo tradicional (que actúa in rem sobre un bien específico), la Mareva injunction obliga personalmente al demandado a no mover ni ocultar sus activos, so pena de incurrir en contempt of court (desacato) si desobedece.
En la práctica, esto suele complementarse con notificaciones a bancos u otros terceros para que no colaboren en la extracción de fondos; así, aunque la orden se dirige al demandado, sus bienes quedan “congelados” de facto.
Para que un tribunal conceda una Mareva injunction, el solicitante debe cumplir requisitos bastante estrictos, similares a los de cualquier medida cautelar en otros sistemas. En esencia se exige:
- Caso sólido (fumus boni iuris): Demostrar un buen caso arguible en cuanto al fondo del litigio – es decir, que hay indicios serios de que el demandante podría ganar el pleito.
- Riesgo real de disposición de activos (periculum in mora): Evidenciar que existe un peligro real de que, si no se congela el patrimonio, el demandado podría dissipar o ocultar sus bienes, frustrando así una eventual sentencia. Por ejemplo, transferir dinero al extranjero, malvender propiedades o vaciar cuentas.
- Revelación completa y caución: Al solicitarse típicamente ex parte (sin aviso al demandado, para evitar la fuga de activos), se exige al demandante plena franqueza en la presentación de hechos y leyes aplicables, sin ocultar nada relevante al tribunal. Además, normalmente debe ofrecer una garantía (undertaking) para cubrir daños al demandado en caso de que la medida luego resulte injustificada.
La Mareva injunction es considerada una herramienta drástica pero eficaz.
De hecho, los jueces la han comparado con una “arma nuclear” legal cuando se combina con otros interdictos potentes (como el Anton Piller order, que permite registrar y incautar evidencia).
Esto muestra lo gravosa que puede ser para un demandado: sus cuentas bancarias, propiedades y otros activos quedan bloqueados preventivamente, limitando su uso.
Por esa razón, los tribunales la aplican con cuidado, equilibrando el derecho del acreedor a asegurarse el cobro con los derechos del demandado a disponer de sus bienes si no hay abuso.
La orden suele incluir excepciones para gastos ordinarios de vida o de negocio del demandado, y puede fijar un umbral mínimo de dinero que debe quedar libre para no estrangular completamente su liquidez.
Desarrollo y trascendencia en el derecho anglosajón
Tras 1975, la Mareva injunction se consolidó rápidamente en Reino Unido y en otros países de tradición common law.
Los tribunales británicos ampliaron su alcance en los años 80 y 90, permitiendo incluso freezing orders de alcance mundial (worldwide Mareva injunctions) que afectan a activos del demandado estén donde estén.
Estas órdenes globales tienen un carácter extraterritorial peculiar: el tribunal inglés ordena al demandado no disponer de bienes en ningún país, confiando en la cooperación voluntaria de éste (bajo amenaza de sanciones si incumple) y en la ayuda de cortes extranjeras para ejecutar la orden si es necesario.
Por ejemplo, una High Court en Londres puede congelar las cuentas de un demandado no solo en bancos ingleses, sino también sus fondos en Suiza o propiedades en España, si acredita que existe riesgo de que los distraiga.
Esto, por supuesto, plantea retos de cooperación jurídica internacional para hacer efectiva la medida fuera del Reino Unido.
Aun así, las worldwide freezing orders se han convertido en un instrumento valioso en litigios comerciales y de fraude transfronterizos, pues impiden que los deudores internacionales se escapen con el dinero.
En el mundo common law, la Mareva injunction (también llamada simplemente freezing order) es hoy un recurso ampliamente reconocido.
Países como Canadá, Australia, Singapur o Nigeria han adoptado este tipo de órdenes en sus propios procedimientos civiles.
Es común que los abogados de jurisdicciones anglosajonas pidan una Mareva injunction cuando temen que “se evapore” el patrimonio en disputa antes de lograr una sentencia.
Gracias a 50 años de práctica, existen protocolos detallados sobre cómo solicitarla correctamente (por ejemplo, la obligación de divulgación plena mencionada) y sobre cómo calibrar la orden para que sea efectiva pero no abusiva.
Incluso se ha integrado en normas escritas: las Reglas de Procedimiento Civil en Inglaterra, desde 1998, codificaron su existencia bajo el nombre de freezing order, y manuales prácticos guían a jueces y litigantes en su aplicación.
Vale la pena destacar que esta innovación inglesa en realidad se inspiró en medidas cautelares que ya existían en otros lares.
Lord Denning señaló en 1975 que muchos países permitían embargos antes del juicio (citaba el ejemplo del saisie conservatoire francés) mientras que Inglaterra llevaba siglo y medio de rezago en ese aspecto.
Así, la Mareva injunction fue en cierto modo un catch-up del common law con prácticas del civil law.
Sin embargo, aportó algunas diferencias importantes: su carácter personal (orden al demandado) y su flexibilidad para adaptarse a activos de cualquier tipo, incluso fuera de la jurisdicción.
Estas características la hicieron muy poderosa en el contexto globalizado actual.
Influencia en otras jurisdicciones y el caso de España
La trascendencia de la Mareva injunction ha cruzado fronteras.
Su éxito motivó debates sobre su incorporación o equivalentes en sistemas de derecho continental, aunque estos ya cuentan con sus propias medidas cautelares tradicionales.
En las jurisdicciones continentales europeas, el embargo preventivo de bienes ha sido una práctica común desde hace siglos, por lo que la idea de “congelar” activos antes de la sentencia no les resultaba extraña.
Por ejemplo, en España existe la figura del embargo preventivo (medida cautelar patrimonial recogida en la Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil) que persigue esencialmente la misma finalidad: asegurar bienes del demandado para garantizar la efectividad de una futura sentencia.
De hecho, en la doctrina se equipara la freezing injunction anglosajona con la retención o embargo precautorio del derecho continental.
Los requisitos legales para decretar un embargo preventivo en España (fumus boni iuris, periculum in mora y caución) son análogos a los que hemos descrito para la Mareva injunction.
Incluso la posibilidad de que el juez actúe inaudita parte (sin oír al demandado) existe en la ley española, en situaciones de urgencia o riesgo grave de que la notificación previa frustre la medida.
Entonces, ¿qué aporta la Mareva injunction a sistemas como el español?
Más que introducir una medida inédita, su influencia se nota en ciertos matices y alcances. Por ejemplo:
- Carácter global: Los tribunales ingleses desarrollaron la Mareva injunction global para congelar activos mundialmente, algo para lo cual las vías tradicionales continentales son limitadas.
- En España, un juez solo tiene jurisdicción sobre bienes en territorio español (salvo que se coopere con otros países).
- La aproximación anglosajona –orden personal al demandado con efectos internacionales– ha impulsado reflexiones sobre cómo mejorar la eficacia de los embargos transnacionales en el marco europeo e internacional.
- Cooperación judicial internacional: La influencia de la Mareva injunction se percibe en iniciativas legislativas supranacionales. Un ejemplo claro es la Unión Europea, que aprobó el Reglamento (UE) Nº 655/2014 para crear la Orden Europea de Retención de Cuentas Bancarias.
- Esta herramienta permite congelar cuentas bancarias de un deudor en cualquier país de la UE de forma rápida y unificada, asegurando de forma preventiva créditos transfronterizos.
- Si bien no es exactamente una “Mareva” (se limita a cuentas bancarias), comparte el espíritu de reacción veloz y alcance amplio para evitar la fuga de activos más allá de fronteras.
- Podemos ver aquí una convergencia: el derecho continental adoptando mecanismos más agresivos inspirados en la efectividad de la Mareva anglosajona, mientras que el common law tuvo que crear algo que los continentales ya tenían, para no quedarse atrás.
- Difusión conceptual: A nivel de práctica jurídica, hoy es común que abogados y jueces de países hispanohablantes estén familiarizados con el término Mareva injunction al abordar litigios internacionales.
- Por ejemplo, en arbitrajes comerciales con partes de distintos países, no es raro oír referencias a “pedir una Mareva” cuando se teme que la parte contraria vacíe sus cuentas.
- Aunque en España la solicitud formal será la de un embargo preventivo ante el juez, la estrategia detrás y la urgencia de actuación ex parte vienen claramente influidas por aquella figura inglesa.
- Incluso hay resoluciones de Audiencias Provinciales españolas que han discutido medidas equivalentes citando la terminología Mareva, especialmente cuando colaboran con órdenes de tribunales extranjeros.
Por todo ello, los sistemas de civil law no han necesitado “copiar” la Mareva injunction exactamente porque ya tenían instrumentos cautelares parecidos.
Sin embargo, sí han tomado nota de su eficacia y la han imitado en aspectos puntuales: rapidez, sorpresa (efecto freeze sin aviso) y ámbito internacional.
España y otros países continentales han reforzado sus herramientas de tutela judicial cautelar para que ningún listo pueda escabullirse con el dinero antes de rendir cuentas.
Medio siglo después de su nacimiento, la Mareva injunction se ha integrado en el repertorio global de medidas precautorias, demostrando que un buen invento jurídico trasciende tradiciones y fronteras.
¿Te has enfrentado a un caso en el que una medida como la Mareva injunction habría marcado la diferencia?
En un mundo cada vez más globalizado, quizás ha llegado el momento de repensar la eficacia y armonización de nuestras medidas cautelares en Europa y más allá.
Si trabajas en litigios internacionales o recuperación de activos y te interesa explorar mecanismos similares en tu jurisdicción, estaré encantado de intercambiar impresiones o ayudarte a valorar estrategias aplicables.
Puedes escribirme directamente o dejar un comentario.
Mientras tanto, ¡feliz cumpleaños, Mareva injunction!
- Nippon Yusen Kaisha v. Karageorgis (mayo 1975): En este caso, una naviera japonesa reclamaba pagos pendientes de un contrato de fletamento:
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🇪🇸 Recuperación de activos en casos graves de fraude : Vía penal española vs. mecanismos civiles del common law
Read this post in English
Introducción
En casos graves de fraude, como el soborno (cohecho), la corrupción, o las insolvencias punibles, la localización, congelación y recuperación de activos ilícitos es crucial para resarcir a las víctimas y desincentivar estas conductas.
Tradicionalmente, en jurisdicciones de common law (como Reino Unido o EE.UU.), las víctimas suelen recurrir a vías civiles –por ejemplo, demandas por fraude con medidas cautelares como freezing orders (ordenes de congelación de bienes)– para rastrear y recuperar el dinero desviado.
Sin embargo, el Derecho penal español ofrece herramientas potentes que, bien utilizadas, pueden resultar equiparables a esos mecanismos civiles habituales.
En particular, el régimen de decomiso del Código Penal (arts. 127 y ss.) proporciona una base legal para incautar y confiscar los bienes procedentes del delito, con apoyo de instituciones especializadas como la Oficina de Recuperación y Gestión de Activos (ORGA).
A continuación se analiza, desde la perspectiva práctica de un demandante/víctima pero con visión neutral, cómo aprovechar el proceso penal español en casos de corrupción para lograr la localización, congelación y recuperación efectiva de activos, y se comparan dichas herramientas con las típicas del common law.
Confiscación penal en España: artículos 127 y siguientes del Código Penal
La confiscación penal (decomiso) en España es una consecuencia jurídica accesoria que permite privar al delincuente de las ganancias e instrumentos del delito.
El Código Penal establece un decomiso obligatorio de los efectos, bienes, medios, instrumentos o ganancias provenientes de cualquier delito doloso cuando exista condena.
Esto abarca todo tipo de bienes –dinero, inmuebles, activos financieros, etc.– obtenidos mediante la actividad corrupta, con la doble finalidad de evitar el enriquecimiento ilícito del condenado y de facilitar la satisfacción de la responsabilidad civil a las víctimas.
En otras palabras, una sentencia penal por corrupción conllevará normalmente la pérdida de las ganancias del delito en favor del Estado, pero prioritariamente para resarcir daños.
Clases de decomiso
Además de este decomiso básico, la ley prevé modalidades avanzadas para abordar esquemas complejos de corrupción:
- Decomiso ampliado (art. 127 bis CP): Aplicable a ciertos delitos graves (entre ellos cohecho, corrupción en los negocios y malversación), permite confiscar bienes no directamente relacionados con el hecho concreto condenado, cuando existan indicios fundados de que provienen de otras actividades delictivas previas del condenado. Por ejemplo, en un caso de corrupción pública, si el condenado no puede justificar su elevado patrimonio personal, el tribunal puede presumir origen ilícito y decomisarlo aun sin vincular cada bien a un acto específico de soborno. Esta herramienta –introducida por la reforma de 2015 por exigencia de la Directiva 2014/42/UE– es análoga a la confiscación por enriquecimiento ilícito que se ve en jurisdicciones common law.
- Decomiso de bienes de terceros (art. 127 quater CP): La ley contempla que los activos transferidos a terceros por el corrupto para ocultarlos o eludir su embargo también puedan ser decomisados. Tras la reforma de 2015, el Código Penal permite incautar bienes en posesión de terceros no condenados, salvo que estos demuestren ser terceros de buena fe ajenos al delito. En particular, se presumen fraudulentas las transmisiones gratuitas o a precio inferior al de mercado, invirtiendo la carga al tercero para probar la legalidad de la adquisición. En la práctica, esto evita que el autor de un soborno esconda el producto del delito a nombre de familiares o testaferros: si dichas personas sabían o debían saber el origen ilícito o la finalidad de ocultación, perderán esos bienes en el proceso penal.
- Decomiso sin condena (art. 127 ter CP): Desde 2015, el ordenamiento español admite confiscar activos incluso sin sentencia condenatoria, en supuestos excepcionales como muerte del imputado, enfermedad grave que impida juzgarlo, fuga (rebeldía) prolongada o prescripción del delito. En estas circunstancias, si se acredita que los bienes tienen origen delictivo, un juez penal puede ordenar su decomiso aunque no exista una condena formal. Esta figura, cercana a la civil forfeiture anglosajona, asegura que la muerte o huida del corrupto no frustre la recuperación de activos ilícitos.
- Decomiso por valor equivalente (art. 127.3 y 127 septies CP): Si el bien ilícito original ya no se encuentra (p. ej., dinero gastado) o ha perdido valor, el juez puede ordenar la confiscación de otros bienes del condenado hasta por el valor equivalente. Esta medida garantiza que el delincuente no conserve beneficios indirectos; se asemeja a las sentencias civiles por daños que obligan a pagar sumas equivalentes al enriquecimiento injusto.
En suma, el marco penal español actual es muy amplio en decomisos. Toda condena por corrupción llevará aparejada la pérdida de ganancias y herramientas del delito; y en casos graves se extiende a patrimonios no justificados, bienes ocultos con terceros e incluso sin condena si procede. Estas herramientas penales buscan lograr el mismo objetivo que las vías civiles de asset recovery: quitar al corrupto el fruto económico de su delito y posibilitar su retorno a las víctimas o al erario público.
Medidas cautelares: localización y embargo de activos durante el proceso penal
Para que la confiscación final sea útil, los activos deben primero localizarse y congelarse oportunamente.
En el proceso penal español, existen medidas cautelares específicas para asegurar los bienes litigiosos desde fases tempranas de la investigación.
El juez de instrucción, a solicitud del fiscal, acusación o de oficio, puede dictar el embargo preventivo de cuentas bancarias, la incautación de efectivo u otros bienes y prohibir disponer de inmuebles, entre otras acciones, cuando haya indicios de que esos activos provienen del delito o sirven para garantizar responsabilidades civiles.
Estas medidas son análogas en función a los freezing orders que dictan los tribunales civiles anglosajones para inmovilizar el patrimonio sospechoso. La diferencia es que en España se tramitan dentro del mismo proceso penal, bajo control judicial penal.
La legislación vigente refuerza estas posibilidades.
El art. 127 octies CP confirma que el decomiso también opera como medida cautelar, permitiendo la aprehensión o embargo anticipado de bienes desde las primeras diligencias.
De forma concordante, la Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal prevé herramientas como el secuestro de bienes (arts. 334 y ss. LECrim) y medidas específicas para delitos económicos (arts. 367 bis y ss. LECrim) que facultan al juez a asegurar patrimonio mientras dura el proceso.
Incluso, la normativa habilita la realización anticipada de bienes intervenidos cuando sea necesario –por ejemplo, la venta en subasta de bienes perecederos o costosos de mantener– para preservar su valor.
En casos de corrupción de cuantía elevada, es habitual que junto con las detenciones o imputaciones iniciales, el juzgado decrete el bloqueo de cuentas bancarias, embargo de propiedades y el decomiso preventivo de efectivo, evitando que el acusado o terceros vacíen o oculten su riqueza antes del juicio.
Un aspecto práctico importante es la localización eficaz de los activos ocultos. Aquí entra en juego la Oficina de Recuperación y Gestión de Activos (ORGA), un órgano administrativo especializado.
A petición del juez instructor o de la fiscalía, la ORGA realiza tareas de “averiguación patrimonial”: busca bienes del investigado tanto en España como en el extranjero, indagando no solo los que estén a su nombre sino también aquellos con indicios de titularidad real oculta mediante testaferros o empresas pantalla.
Para ello, la ORGA tiene acceso a múltiples bases de datos y coopera con otras oficinas de recuperación de activos de distintos países, apoyándose en unidades de la Policía Nacional y Guardia Civil especializadas en delitos económicos.
Esta labor es equiparable a la de detectives financieros o forensic accountants contratados en litigios civiles internacionales, con la ventaja de que en España se realiza dentro del proceso penal y con facultades coercitivas estatales (requerimientos a bancos, registros, etc.).
Gracias a estas medidas cautelares penales, los activos fruto de la corrupción pueden ser rastreados y congelados rápidamente, asegurando que estén disponibles para su posterior decomiso y para el pago de indemnizaciones.
Consolidación de la ORGA en la gestión y recuperación de activos
Profundizando en el papel de la ORGA, ésta se ha consolidado como pieza clave del sistema español de recuperación de activos ilícitos.
Creada en 2015, la ORGA es un órgano técnico del Ministerio de Justicia cuya función es auxiliar a jueces y fiscales en todo lo relativo a localizar, conservar y finalmente realizar (monetizar) los bienes intervenidos en procesos penales por delincuencia organizada y grandes delitos económicos.
Los casos de corrupción figuran expresamente entre sus ámbitos prioritarios de actuación, al estar incluidos en el art. 127 bis CP y considerados delitos económicos graves.
Una vez que el juez ha ordenado el embargo o decomiso preventivo de bienes en un procedimiento por soborno o malversación, la ORGA puede ser solicitada para gestionar esos activos incautados.
Sus funciones incluyen la conservación y administración de los bienes mientras dure el proceso, evitando su deterioro o pérdida de valor, así como la realización anticipada si procede.
Por ejemplo, la ORGA puede depositar dinero incautado en cuentas oficiales para que genere intereses, mantener inmuebles arrendados o custodiar vehículos y objetos de valor, e incluso vender bienes perecederos o costosamente almacenables antes del juicio con autorización judicial.
De esta manera, se impide que los activos producto de la corrupción se dilapiden y se procura obtener el máximo beneficio económico de ellos en favor del procedimiento.
Otra aportación esencial de la ORGA es facilitar la coordinación internacional. Mediante su enlace con otras agencias homólogas en la UE (activas bajo la Decisión 2007/845/JAI) y el mundo, la ORGA puede transmitir órdenes de embargo o decomiso al extranjero y recabar información patrimonial foránea de forma más ágil que los tradicionales exhortos judiciales. Esto complementa los instrumentos de reconocimiento mutuo en la UE (por ejemplo, el Reglamento (UE) 2018/1805, que agiliza la ejecución recíproca de órdenes de embargo y confiscación entre Estados miembros). En suma, la ORGA aporta un componente técnico y transnacional al proceso penal español, similar en su objetivo a lo que sería contratar especialistas en asset tracing en Londres o Nueva York, pero integrado en la acción pública. Todo ello redunda en mayores probabilidades de recuperación real del dinero y bienes originados por la corrupción.
Cabe destacar que el destino final de los activos recuperados vía ORGA refleja un equilibrio entre resarcimiento y sanción. Según la normativa, los bienes decomisados se usan primero para satisfacer las indemnizaciones debidas a las víctimas (p. ej. al erario si se trata de fondos públicos desviados) y solo el remanente pasa al Estado para fines sociales o de lucha anticrimen. Esto garantiza que, desde la óptica del demandante perjudicado, el proceso penal no solo castiga al corrupto sino que también procura restaurar el daño económico sufrido, lo cual es el fin último de cualquier acción de recuperación de activos.
Vía penal vs. vías civiles del common law: una alternativa estratégica
Desde la perspectiva de un demandante (por ejemplo, una empresa o administración víctima de un esquema de soborno), optar por la vía penal española puede ser una estrategia eficaz para la recuperación patrimonial, ofreciendo una alternativa funcional a los litigios civiles internacionales típicos en el common law.
En jurisdicciones anglosajonas, un actor privado tiene a su disposición medidas como las Mareva injunctions (órdenes judiciales de congelación de activos), los interrogatorios y órdenes de descubrimiento de información (como el Norwich Pharmacal Order para obtener datos bancarios de terceros) o la figura del receptor judicial para incautar bienes del demandado.
Estas herramientas civiles han demostrado ser poderosas, pero recaen sobre la iniciativa y costo del propio demandante, que debe impulsar el proceso, contratar abogados en múltiples jurisdicciones y recopilar evidencia por su cuenta. La carga de la prueba en un juicio civil recae en la víctima para rastrear el dinero y vincularlo al corrupto, lo cual puede implicar costosos informes periciales financieros sin garantía de éxito.
Además, cualquier error en la solicitud (por ejemplo, no revelar información relevante al juez civil) puede hacer peligrar la medida de congelación. En síntesis, la vía civil common law ofrece flexibilidad (se puede actuar aunque no haya proceso penal) pero exige al afectado librar una batalla legal por su cuenta para “perseguir el dinero”.
En contraste, la vía penal española moviliza todo el aparato público a favor de la localización y aseguramiento de activos una vez que el caso es admitido.
- Iniciar una querella o denuncia por corrupción en España (o personarse como acusación particular en una ya iniciada) permite al perjudicado aprovechar las facultades investigadoras del Estado: la policía y la ORGA buscarán los bienes, y el juez podrá decretar embargos internacionales mediante cooperación judicial sin necesidad de litigios separados.
- El demandante no tiene que obtener órdenes de disclosure contra bancos por su cuenta –serán el juez y el fiscal quienes las soliciten con la autoridad penal correspondiente–.
- Asimismo, las medidas cautelares penales pueden tener alcance mundial: a través de la asistencia judicial mutua o el reconocimiento UE, un embargo penal español puede congelar cuentas en Londres o Ginebra de forma tan efectiva como lo haría una orden civil local, con la ventaja de venir respaldado por una investigación criminal oficial.
- Otro factor estratégico es el ahorro de costes y esfuerzo. Mientras que en common law la víctima suele costear detectives privados y bufetes especializados para el asset tracing, en España gran parte de esa labor la asume el Estado (ORGA, unidades de inteligencia financiera, etc.), al menos en lo tocante a la persecución penal.
- Esto no solo reduce el coste directo para el demandante, sino que también otorga mayor peso coercitivo: un requerimiento emitido en sede penal para obtener información financiera suele encontrar menos resistencias legales que uno en un litigio civil, debido a su naturaleza pública y eventualmente secreta en fase de instrucción.
Desde luego, la vía penal no está exenta de retos.
- Por un lado, requiere acreditar suficientemente un hecho delictivo para que prospere la investigación (el estándar es diferente al civil, donde basta una causa de acción de ilícito civil).
- Además, el tiempo procesal penal puede ser largo y la víctima tiene menos control sobre el ritmo y las decisiones (que recaen en fiscalía y juez).
- Sin embargo, en asuntos de gran corrupción, muchas veces las autoridades muestran disposición a actuar con agilidad dada la alarma social, y una vez asegurados los activos, el demandante puede sentirse protegido.
- En términos de resultados, bien utilizada la vía penal española puede lograr resultados equivalentes a los de un litigio civil internacional exitoso: congelar rápidamente el patrimonio del infractor, reunir pruebas de movimientos financieros opacos, confiscar los bienes tras la condena y finalmente reintegrar al perjudicado con lo recuperado.
Todo ello, además, con la fuerza de la sanción penal como disuasión (algo que los procesos civiles por sí solos no conllevan).
Herramientas comunes y comparación con el common law
Para valorar la equiparación entre ambos sistemas, conviene enumerar brevemente las principales herramientas de recuperación de activos en tribunales civiles de common law y su contrapartida en el ordenamiento penal español:
- Órdenes de congelación de activos (freezing injunctions): En common law, un juez civil puede dictar órdenes cautelares para congelar bienes del demandado en cualquier parte del mundo (Worldwide Freezing Order) si hay riesgo de disposición fraudulenta. En España, la figura análoga es el embargo preventivo penal y demás medidas de aseguramiento dictadas por el juez de instrucción. Una vez abierto el proceso penal, el juez puede impedir que el acusado disponga de sus cuentas, inmuebles o valores. A través de convenios de cooperación, dichas órdenes penales pueden ejecutarse en terceros países de forma similar a una orden civil extranjera, gracias a instrumentos europeos y convenios internacionales.
- Descubrimiento de información y asset tracing: En litigios anglosajones se utilizan órdenes judiciales para obtener datos de terceros (bancos, cómplices) como la Norwich Pharmacal, y se nombran expertos para seguir el rastro del dinero. En España, la investigación patrimonial penal cumple esa función: la ORGA y la policía judicial acceden a registros bancarios, mercantiles, fiscales, etc., e incluso analizan transferencias internacionales para reconstruir el flujo de fondos ilícitos. Lo que en common law requiere peticiones específicas y cooperación de entidades privadas, aquí se logra mediante diligencias de investigación criminal con valor coercitivo (oficios a bancos, comisiones rogatorias, etc.).
- Confiscación y sentencia de pago: En la vía civil, tras un juicio por enriquecimiento injusto o fraude, el tribunal puede dictar una sentencia condenando al pago de sumas equivalentes al perjuicio o incluso declarar ciertos bienes en poder del demandado (o terceros) en trust constructivo a favor de la víctima. En España, el equivalente es la sentencia penal con decomiso: el fallo condenatorio ordenará que los bienes incautados queden decomisados en favor del Estado, con prioridad para pagar la restitución al perjudicado. Incluso si los activos están en manos de terceros, el decomiso penal (127 quater CP) busca traerlos de vuelta, excepto que un tercero demuestre derechos prevalentes de buena fe. Y si faltan activos para cubrir el daño, siempre queda la vía civil complementaria dentro del propio proceso penal (acción civil ex delicto), de modo que el juez penal fijará una indemnización que el condenado deberá abonar por cualquier diferencia.
- Alcance a terceros e internacionales: En los litigios de common law, es común perseguir activos a través de terceras personas o empresas vinculadas al corrupto, usando teorías de conspiración civil o trazando fondos hasta cuentas de familiares, así como obtener reconocimientos de sentencias en otros países. El sistema penal español, por su parte, incorpora esos terceros dentro del proceso: el juez penal puede llamar e investigar a testaferros por blanqueo de capitales, por ejemplo, o directamente confiscarles bienes si se prueba su conexión con el delito. Para la dimensión internacional, España cuenta con la Euroorden de embargo y confiscación, y tratados bilaterales de asistencia, que permiten que un decomiso español surta efecto en gran parte del mundo (vía reciprocidad o convenios de la ONU). La ORGA actúa en red con otras oficinas, haciendo en lo penal lo que en lo civil requeriría contratar abogados locales en cada jurisdicción.
En definitiva, cada herramienta civil de asset recovery tiene su reflejo funcional en el Derecho penal español. La clave está en usarlas estratégicamente desde el inicio del caso penal: solicitar embargos tempranos, apoyarse en la ORGA para el tracing, acusar el decomiso en el juicio oral y garantizar que la sentencia contemple la restitución civil. Un demandante diligente, asesorado jurídicamente, puede lograr mediante el proceso penal español un resultado muy similar al de litigar en Londres o Nueva York –condena incluida– pero con el apoyo institucional que brinda nuestro sistema.
Conclusiones y puntos clave
En los casos graves de fraude o gran corrupción, el Derecho penal español ofrece un arsenal de medidas para la recuperación de activos que puede igualar en eficacia a los mecanismos civiles del common law.
Desde la óptica del perjudicado, acudir a la vía penal no solo busca castigo sino también recuperación patrimonial.
Si bien cada caso requerirá evaluar la mejor estrategia (no siempre la vía penal sustituye a la civil, especialmente si no hay base delictiva clara), es innegable que las reformas legales y la profesionalización de unidades como la ORGA han potenciado la vía penal como alternativa funcional en asset tracing y asset recovery. A modo de síntesis, se destacan cinco puntos clave que sustentan esta tesis:
- Pérdida de ganancias ilícitas garantizada: El Código Penal español obliga al decomiso de los bienes y ganancias procedentes del delito de corrupción tras una condena. Esto asegura que el condenado no pueda conservar el fruto económico del soborno, cumpliendo la misma finalidad que una orden civil de confiscación por enriquecimiento injusto en common law.
- Medidas cautelares equiparables a freezing orders: Los jueces penales españoles pueden embargar y secuestrar activos preventivamente durante la instrucción, evitando su fuga. Esta congelación judicial temprana cumple la misma función que las freezing injunctions de los tribunales civiles anglosajones, impidiendo la dissipación de los activos mientras se resuelve el caso.
- ORGA y apoyo estatal en el rastreo de bienes: La existencia de la ORGA proporciona un equipo especializado que localiza activos incluso ocultos o en el extranjero, cooperando con oficinas internacionales. En la práctica, el demandante cuenta con herramientas investigativas públicas similares a las que en common law requerirían investigadores privados y múltiples órdenes de divulgación a terceros.
- Recuperación efectiva para las víctimas: El procedimiento penal español integra la restitución civil dentro de la sentencia. Las sumas decomisadas se destinan prioritariamente a indemnizar al perjudicado, de modo que la víctima obtiene resarcimiento económico sin necesidad de un pleito civil paralelo. Esto contrasta con el common law, donde tras obtener un congelamiento civil aún se debe ganar un juicio civil para lograr la compensación.
- Alcance ampliado y versatilidad jurídica: Las facultades de decomiso en España se han ampliado para abarcar bienes en manos de terceros y casos sin condena cuando corresponde. Esta versatilidad –sumada a la cooperación judicial internacional– permite lograr en sede penal resultados comparables a las complejas acciones civiles transnacionales (como perseguir activos transferidos a familiares o usar figuras de confiscación in rem). En otras palabras, el derecho penal patrimonial español moderno cubre muchos de los resquicios que antes solo podían afrontarse mediante demandas civiles en el extranjero.
En conclusión, un planteamiento proactivo del demandante/víctima utilizando el proceso penal español por corrupción, apoyado en el decomiso de los arts. 127 y ss. CP y en organismos como la ORGA, puede equiparar sus posibilidades de recuperación de activos a las que tendría empleando los sofisticados mecanismos civiles del common law. La vía penal, correctamente explotada, se revela así como una herramienta eficaz y complementaria en la lucha global contra la corrupción y en la restitución de activos a quienes legítimamente pertenecen.
Referencias
- Código Penal español (arts. 127–127 octies): https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1995-25444
- Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal: https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1882-6036
- Directiva 2014/42/UE del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ES/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014L0042
- Ministerio de Justicia – ORGA: https://www.mjusticia.gob.es/es/areas-actuacion/oficina-recuperacion-gestion
- Almacén de Derecho – análisis sobre decomiso: https://almacendederecho.org/el-decomiso-en-el-codigo-penal-tras-la-reforma-de-2015
- El Derecho – reformas LO 1/2015: https://elderecho.com/la-reforma-del-decomiso-penal-en-la-lo-1-2015
- Financier Worldwide – Q&A sobre recuperación de activos: https://www.financierworldwide.com/asset-recovery-qa#.ZgUO0HZBxPY
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Criminal or Civil? Spain’s Asset Recovery Advantage in Serious Fraud Cases
Lee esta entrada en español
Introduction
Asset recovery in cases of bribery and corruption (and other serious fraud cases) often pits criminal law remedies against civil litigation tools.
In common law jurisdictions such as England and the United States, practitioners frequently rely on civil asset tracing and recovery mechanisms – for example, freezing injunctions (Mareva orders), disclosure orders, and civil forfeiture actions – to locate, freeze, and ultimately recover illicit assets.
Spain, by contrast, similarly to other continental jurisdictions, offers an alternative path: leveraging criminal proceedings and the confiscation regime under its Criminal Code (Articles 127 et seq.) to achieve similar results.
This commentary examines how Spanish criminal law provides a viable and functionally equivalent alternative to civil litigation in international asset recovery.
By comparing tools like civil versus criminal freezing orders, exploring Spain’s proactive investigative powers, and highlighting institutions like the Spanish Office for Asset Recovery and Management (ORGA), we argue that Spain’s criminal framework can match the effectiveness of common law civil processes in tracing, freezing, and confiscating illicit assets.
Criminal vs. Civil Asset Recovery: Two Paths
When pursuing stolen or illicit assets, practitioners have traditionally chosen between initiating criminal proceedings or filing civil actions.
In common law settings, civil litigation has been attractive for victims of corruption and fraud because it grants direct control to the victim (now a plaintiff) and can deploy powerful tools like worldwide freezing orders, asset disclosure orders, and trusts or tracing claims.
Civil courts in jurisdictions like England can, for instance, issue a Mareva injunction to freeze a defendant’s assets worldwide, or order third parties (such as banks) to divulge information through Norwich Pharmacal orders – all without waiting for a criminal conviction.
However, civil action comes with hurdles: the plaintiff must fund and prove their case, meet high evidentiary thresholds for interim relief, and often act quickly and ex parte to prevent asset dissipation.
Moreover, civil courts in some jurisdictions (including Spain) are cautious and slow in granting interim asset freezes. In Spain specifically, preventive injunctions in civil cases are difficult to obtain with the necessary speed and typically require the applicant to post a security bond.
By contrast, criminal proceedings empower the state (police, prosecutors, investigating judges) to take rapid action against a suspect’s property without the need for the victim to independently secure relief or guarantee potential damages.
Spain’s legal system, rooted in civil law tradition, integrates the asset recovery process directly into criminal proceedings.
Spanish prosecutors and investigating magistrates can open a case for bribery or corruption and almost immediately seek judicial orders to identify, freeze (embargo), and eventually confiscate assets connected to the offence.
Notably, Spanish law allows an injured party (e.g. a defrauded company or government agency) to participate in the criminal case as a private prosecutor (acusación particular), asserting their rights and claiming damages within the criminal proceeding itself.
This obviates the need for a separate civil lawsuit to recover losses – a stark difference from common law systems where the criminal case focuses on guilt, and victims must often pursue civil claims for compensation separately.
In Spain, the criminal court will adjudicate civil liability alongside the criminal verdict, ordering restitution or damages to victims as appropriate.
Thus, Spanish criminal law offers a one-stop avenue: the same proceeding can establish guilt, restrain and seize assets, and restore those assets (or their value) to victims or the public treasury.
Freezing Assets: Mareva Injunctions vs. Spanish Freezing Orders
A critical early step in asset recovery is freezing assets to prevent their flight.
Common law practitioners often turn to freezing injunctions, such as Mareva orders in English courts, which restrain a defendant from dissipating assets up to a certain value.
These orders can be powerful – for example, a worldwide freezing order from a UK court can bind a defendant’s assets globally – but they come with procedural strictures.
To obtain such an order, a civil plaintiff must show a good arguable case on the merits, evidence of a real risk of asset dissipation, and typically must provide an undertaking (or bond) to cover damages if the injunction later proves unwarranted.
In cross-border situations, enforcing a freezing order in a foreign jurisdiction can require additional steps (e.g. an exequatur in Spain to recognize and enforce a foreign civil order), potentially losing valuable time.
Spain’s criminal procedure provides a roughly analogous tool: the preventive seizure (embargo preventivo) of assets ordered by an investigating judge in a criminal case.
Under the Spanish Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal (Criminal Procedure Act), if a person is charged with an offence that may result in monetary penalties or civil liabilities, the judge must take measures to secure assets sufficient to cover those potential obligations (fines, restitution, damages) – often by freezing bank accounts, seizing real estate, or attaching other assets of the accused.
This criminal freezing order is imposed ex parte (without warning to the suspect) and can be effected rapidly at the investigative stage, based on the gravity of the alleged crime and potential liability, rather than the full trial on the merits. Crucially, the court can do so swiftly and without requiring a victim to post a bond, unlike in civil proceedings.
In practice, a Spanish criminal freezing order achieves the same core objective as a common law freezing order: it preserves the asset’s value until a final decision.
For example, in a corruption investigation, a Spanish judge can swiftly freeze bank accounts, register a seizure against real property, or embargo luxury vehicles and yachts owned by the suspect.
These measures prevent the suspect (or colluding third parties) from moving or hiding assets during the trial. Similarly, authorities can impose a prohibición de disponer (prohibition on transfer) over shares or companies to halt any further dissipation.
By the time the criminal case concludes, the assets are safely under judicial control, ready to be confiscated or used to pay fines and compensation. The functional equivalence to civil freezing tools is clear – both aim to stop the money from vanishing – but the criminal route often has the edge in speed and enforcement power within Spain.
Investigative Powers and Proactive Discovery
Effective asset recovery requires knowing what and where to freeze or seize. This is another arena where Spanish criminal proceedings can outperform civil litigation.
In a civil case, even with an asset freeze in hand, a plaintiff may have limited information about the opponent’s holdings.
Common law courts provide some tools for discovery – for instance, an ancillary disclosure order can compel a defendant to list assets, and third-party disclosure (like Norwich Pharmacal orders) can force banks or intermediaries to reveal information.
However, these measures depend on the plaintiff’s initiative and are constrained by what the plaintiff can uncover or persuade a court to order.
By contrast, in a Spanish criminal investigation, the state wields robust investigatory powers that can be deployed to trace and secure assets proactively.
Once a bribery or corruption case is opened, Spanish authorities can: conduct search and seizures of premises, obtain bank records and financial information, intercept communications under judicial supervision, and utilize special techniques like wiretaps or undercover agents. Spain participates in international law enforcement networks that enable cross-border asset tracing.
The Spanish Asset Recovery Office (part of ORGA) can swiftly exchange information with counterpart agencies in other countries.
Spanish criminal procedure allows for compelling testimony and cooperation through plea bargains or leniency for collaborators, which can break open complex corruption schemes and reveal asset trails.
In summary, the proactive discovery powers inherent in criminal enforcement give Spain a potent toolkit to find the needle in the haystack of global corruption proceeds, without relying solely on civil subpoenas.
Confiscation and Forfeiture: Spanish Criminal Code vs. Civil Remedies
Freezing assets is only half the battle – the ultimate goal is confiscation or recovery. In common law, this is often done via (1) a civil judgment awarding damages or (2) civil forfeiture (in rem proceedings against property).
Spain’s Criminal Code (Código Penal), under Article 127, mandates confiscation of the proceeds, instruments, or gains of the offense upon conviction. This includes both direct and substituted assets. Courts are empowered to impose confiscation of equivalent value if original assets cannot be located.
Article 127 bis allows extended confiscation of any assets of illicit origin, even those not directly linked to the crime, when lawful origin cannot be established. Spain’s Article 127 ter enables non-conviction based confiscation in cases where the suspect is deceased, seriously ill, or absconding.
Article 127 quater authorizes confiscation of assets held by third parties who knew or should have known the criminal origin. Thus, the Spanish system reaches not just the immediate fruits of bribery, but also unexplained wealth, proxy-held assets, and assets transferred to shield them from forfeiture.
Institutional Support: The Role of ORGA and Coordination
Spain’s Office for Asset Recovery and Management (ORGA), created in 2015, supports judicial authorities in the localization, administration, and realization of criminal assets. ORGA locates assets both domestically and abroad, assists with preventive and final confiscation, maintains assets, and even arranges early liquidation when appropriate.
As Spain’s national Asset Recovery Office (ARO), ORGA is connected to the EU ARO network and plays a central role in international cooperation, allowing authorities to trace and freeze assets across borders. This infrastructure allows criminal proceedings in Spain to accomplish what a private litigant might need years and multiple jurisdictions to achieve through civil suits.
Victim Compensation and Efficiency Considerations
Unlike common law systems where criminal and civil proceedings are separate, Spain allows the criminal court to award civil compensation directly within the criminal case. Confiscated or recovered assets can be used to satisfy these awards. The victim participates in the criminal case and recovers damages if the defendant is convicted, eliminating the need for separate proceedings.
Conclusion
Spain’s criminal law framework provides a robust and integrated alternative to common law civil asset recovery. Through the use of preventive embargoes, proactive investigation, and a wide-reaching confiscation regime – supported by ORGA and international cooperation – Spain offers a streamlined route to asset recovery in corruption cases.
For international practitioners, especially when assets are located in Spain or involve Spanish defendants, engaging with the Spanish criminal process may provide faster and more cost-effective outcomes than launching parallel civil proceedings.
References
- Spanish Criminal Code (Código Penal) – Articles 127 to 127 octies. Consolidated text available at: https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1995-25444
- Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal (Spanish Criminal Procedure Act), particularly Articles 334 et seq., regarding provisional measures and asset freezing.
- Regulation (EU) 2018/1805 of 14 November 2018 on the mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation orders. Available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32018R1805
- Directive 2014/42/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on the freezing and confiscation of instrumentalities and proceeds of crime in the European Union.
- Spanish Ministry of Justice, ORGA (Oficina de Recuperación y Gestión de Activos) – Annual statistical reports (2018–2022). Available at:
- Spanish Asset Recovery and Management Office (ORGA) official website: https://www.mjusticia.gob.es/es/areas-actuacion/oficina-recuperacion-gestion
- Almacén de Derecho – Ignacio González Vega, El decomiso sin condena penal: principales novedades introducidas por la reforma penal de 2015, 21 April 2016.
Available at: https://almacendederecho.org/el-decomiso-sin-condena-penal - Financier Worldwide Magazine, Bribery and corruption – Q&A: Spain, June 2022.
Available at: https://www.financierworldwide.com/bribery-and-corruption-qa-spain - El Derecho – Commentary on LO 1/2015 amending the Criminal Code regarding confiscation.
Extracts accessible via: https://elderecho.com - Conflict of Laws .net, blog posts discussing Spanish recognition and enforcement of foreign freezing and confiscation orders, including updates on the H Limited judgment and the broader EU context.
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Hector Sbert 