The report treats asset recovery not as a single legal event but as a sequence of distinct stages. The identification of property, a criminal conviction, evidence of a suspicious transfer or proof of financial loss does not by itself establish that a particular asset may lawfully be taken and delivered to a victim. Between identification and actual recovery lie preservation, determination of the claim, examination of third-party rights, recognition, realisation and distribution.

The analysis compares three principal routes: criminal confiscation, non-conviction-based confiscation and civil claims. Using England and Wales, the United States and France as its main comparative jurisdictions, the report examines differences in the issues to be proved, standards and burdens of proof, presumptions and procedural safeguards. European instruments and the United Nations Convention against Corruption provide the broader international framework. A central conclusion is that these mechanisms cannot be reduced to a simple hierarchy of “higher” and “lower” standards of proof. Standing, the legal connection with property, a particular presumption, competing rights or restrictions on the use of evidence may be more decisive than the nominal evidential threshold.

A substantial part of the report focuses on the practical construction of evidence. It addresses banking records, financial reconstruction and tracing, electronic evidence, open-source material, blockchain transactions, witnesses and expert reports. Particular emphasis is placed on separating observation from inference. A payment record does not necessarily establish the legal character of the transaction; a crypto address does not identify its owner without further attribution; and a financial connection between disputed funds and an asset does not necessarily establish a continuing proprietary interest in that asset.

The report also examines evidence-gathering mechanisms in France and the United States, international cooperation, interim preservation measures, enforcement of foreign decisions and the competing interests of co-owners, secured creditors and purchasers. It explains why state confiscation does not automatically produce compensation for a private victim and why an asset that has been located may still be legally or economically unavailable for recovery.

ARGA’s practical model begins with a legal map of the case and an evidence matrix: who is entitled to bring the claim, against whom, for what relief, which facts must be established, where the evidence is held and what objections are likely to arise. The effectiveness of recovery should ultimately be measured not by the headline amount frozen or awarded, but by the value actually realised and lawfully transferred to the proper recipient after costs and competing rights are taken into account.