Biens mal acquis


Biens mal acquis is a phrase used in French courts for litigation seeking the repayment of assets stolen from poor countries by corrupt officials. The phrase refers to anti-corruption legal proceedings against former dictators and strongmen outside of their country, the seizure of assets within the country of the legal proceedings, and the return of the assets to the country from which they were embezzled.
Examples of biens mal acquis are government funds from former colonies of Françafrique that were spent on luxurious lifestyles and investment real estate in France. The doctrine has since been used in similar cases filed in Spain, Switzerland and Monaco, and against the Marcos family and the estate of Sani Abacha.

Terminology

The phrase biens mal acquis is derived from the French proverb bien mal acquis ne profite jamais meaning "a thing dishonorably obtained never truly enriches" in English, and is generally translated to the equivalent English phrase of "ill-gotten goods". A March 2007 report by the Catholic Committee Against Hunger and for Development, titled Biens mal acquis... profitent trop souvent. La fortune des dictateurs et les complaisances occidentales enumerated known instances of kleptocracy in African dictatorships. It is estimated that $100–180 billion in assets have been diverted by national leaders through embezzlement or unnecessary expenditure in recent decades. For example, Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaïre from 1965 until his death in 1997, became notorious for using his position as military dictator to openly embezzle massive sums of state money to fund an extravagant lifestyle. Mobutu had homes in France and Switzerland, and by the time of his death held a personal fortune of $5–6 billion, leaving his country with a public debt of $13 billion.
Biens mal acquis was originally used in France for anti-corruption legal proceedings filed in its own judicial system against heads of state of the Françafrique accused of misappropriating or stealing state assets for their own benefit. The phrase became associated with corrupt politicians of these poor post-colonial countries, as they and their associates often invested their illegally acquired fortunes in France. The term was later popularized for all litigation filed against any corrupt politicians of poor countries in any foreign judicial system, normally in Western Europe, where the assets stolen by the defendant are believed to be held. Seized assets from former dictators found to have misappropriated treasury funds while in power have since been returned in restitution to the governments of the countries they were stolen from. Despite being the first G8 country to ratify the United Nations Convention against Corruption, known as the Mérida Convention, France has not undertaken any restitution measures. In other cases, judicial proceedings are still underway, or opposition groups have asked for the money to be returned in some other way to the country's people because a corrupt government is still in power. Sometimes this takes the form of a development project, with negotiated milestones for the release of funds.
The Belgian Centre national de coopération au développement, or National Center for Cooperation in Development, has defined biens mal acquis as a "fixed or liquid asset or fund which may be misappropriated and illegally removed from the public heritage, and thereby impoverishing the state". Ill-gotten goods may result from tortious or criminal activity, which has enabled heads of state to enrich themselves far beyond the level their official incomes can explain. Ill-gotten goods may stem from embezzlement, theft, or the illicit transfer of money from the state to personal accounts, from corruption or from kickbacks. Their owners often use opaque methods to hide their capital, assure themselves of impunity, particularly due to tax havens, and also assure of the complacency of developed nations.

List of assets seized

This section is a list of known assets successfully seized through biens mal acquis rulings and is incomplete:

Gabon

Gabonese president Ali Bongo Ondimba is estimated to have paid €98 million to the family for the Soyecourt, a historic hôtel particulier on the rue de l'Université in the 7th arrondissement in central Paris.
Gabon - Assets seized from the family of Omar Bongo
  • Audrey Blanche Bongo Odimba
  • *rue de Longchamp, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Seine
  • *500 m2 4-room apartment with garage and basement
  • Édith Lucie Sassou - wife of President Omar Bongo from 1990 to 2009, daughter of Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of the Republic of the Congo.
  • *avenue Rapp, 75007 Paris, 4-room apartment
  • *avenue Rapp, 75007 Paris, 4-room apartment, 342 m2
  • *avenue Rapp, 75007 Paris, 4 room apartment, 284 m2
  • *rue du Mont-Boron, Nice, France
  • Jean Ping - politician and Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union from 2008 to 2012, formerly married to Omar Bongo's eldest daughter, Pascaline.
  • *rue Quentin-Bauchart, 75008 Paris
  • *avenue d’Italie, 75013 Paris
  • Jeff Thierry Arsène Jaffar Bongo Ondimba - son of President Ali Bongo Ondimba
  • *Aix-en-Provence, 125 m2 apartment with 13 garages, purchased 2005, value €1.24 million
  • *Villeneuve-Loubet, house
  • *avenue Raymond-Poincarré, 75016 Paris, 4-room apartment
  • *also: 2 apartments in downtown Nice, 100 and 170 m2, three houses just off the Promenade des Anglais
  • Omar Ben Bongo - father of President Ali Bongo
  • *bd Lannes, 75016 Paris, 7-room apartment
  • Omar Bongo Ondimba - President of Gabon since October 2009
  • *bd Frédéric-Sterling, Nice France, 8-room house, 215 m2
  • *bd Frédéric-Sterling, Nice France, 7-room apartment, 170 m2
  • *bd Frédéric-Sterling Nice, France, 6-room apartment, 100 m2
  • *rue Edmond-Valentin, 75007 Paris,
  • *avenue Foch, 75016 Paris, 4-room apartment
  • *avenue Foch, 75016 Paris, 3-room apartment, 88 m2
  • *avenue Foch, 75016 Paris, 5-room apartment, 210 m2
  • *avenue Foch, 75016 Paris, 9-room apartment, 365 m2
  • *bd Flandrin, 75016 Paris
  • *rue de Longchamp, 75016 Paris
  • *avenue Raymond-Poincaré, 75016 Paris
  • *rue Leroux, 75016 Paris
  • *rue Laurent-Pichat, 75016 Paris, apartment, 219 m2
  • Omar Bongo - President of Gabon from 1967 to 2009, father of current President Omar Bongo Ondimba.
  • *rue de la Tremoille, 75008 Paris
  • *rue de la Faisanderie, 75016 Paris
  • *allée des Feuillantines, 94000 Villejuif, France
  • Yacine Queenie Bongo Odimba
  • *rue de la Baume, 75008 Paris, hôtel particulier
  • *bd Lannes, 75016 Paris
  • *bd Suchet, 75016 Paris

    Republic of the Congo

Republic of the Congo - Assets seized from the family of Denis Sassou Nguesso
  • Denis Sassou Nguesso declares that he does not have a bank account in his name in France. Still, the investigation by the Office central de répression de la grande délinquance financière, found 112 bank accounts registered to members of his family.
  • *avenue Rapp, 75007
  • *villa at Vésinet
  • *rue Marbeuf, 75008 Paris, 7-room apartment
  • Julienne Sassou Nguesso
  • *bd Saint-Denis, 92400 Courbevoie, 8 rooms, 175 m2
  • *bd du Général Koenig, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Seine, 7-room Hôtel particulier with inside swimming pool
  • Claudia Lemboumba
  • *avenue Victor-Hugo, 75016 Paris, Studio
  • *rue Copernic, 75016 Paris, 6-room apartment with 2 chambres de bonne
  • *avenue Turgot, 93700 Drancy, France, 6-room house
  • Maurice Nguesso
  • *rue Poirier-Fourrier, 95100 Argenteuil, 4-room apartment
  • *villa Rochefort, 91000 Évry, France, 3-room apartment
  • *bd Malesherbes, 75008 Paris
  • Antoinette Tchibo Malonda, wife of Sassou N’Guesso
  • *avenue Niel, 75017 Paris. 9-room apartment, 328 m2, bought for €2.47 million in 2007
  • *8 bank accounts at Crédit Industriel et Commercial and at the Crédit Lyonnais, in Paris and Boulogne-Billancourt
  • Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso
  • *rue de la Tour, 75016 Paris. 10-room with garage and chambre de service
  • Claude Wilfrid Etoka, as trustee for Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso :
  • *SARPD Oil, US$500 million
  • Wilfrid Nguesso :
  • *Mercedes-Benz S 500, €107,400
  • *Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG, €116,000
  • *Aston Martin DB9, €172,321
  • *Audi Q7, €65,000
  • *Land Rover, €95,000
  • *Mercedes-Benz G 55 AMG, €90,000
  • *Aston Martin DB7 Vantage €77,000
  • *BMW X5, €75,800
  • *Porsche Cayenne, €67,952
  • *Toyota Land Cruiser, €40,000

    Equatorial Guinea

Equatorial Guinea - Assets seized from the family of Teodoro Obiang
  • Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangué - Vice President of Equatorial Guinea and son of President of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang.
  • *Bugatti Veyron, €1,196,000
  • *Bugatti Veyron, €1,196,000
  • *Bugatti Veyron, €1,196,000
  • *Ferrari Enzo, €675,000
  • *Maserati MC12, €709,000
  • *Maybach 62, €510,479
  • *Rolls-Royce Phantom Limousine, €381,000
  • *Maserati Coupé Cambiocorsa, €82,000
  • *Ferrari F512 M, €182,938
  • *Ferrari 550 Maranello, €152,201

    List of restitutions

This section is a known list of restitutions made by biens mal acquis rulings and is incomplete:
Switzerland has made several restitutions:
  • $658 million returned to the Philippines in 2003 after 17 years of litigation in the Philippines over the estate of the late former president Ferdinand Marcos.
  • $2.4 million from the Malian dictator Moussa Traoré.
  • Switzerland gave back $380 million in restitution to Nigeria in March 2015 from the estate of former dictator Sani Abacha, who held much of an embezzled $2.2 billion fortune in Swiss bank accounts in his name. Switzerland had previously returned $700m to Nigeria from Abacha's Swiss accounts in the first restitution of its kind.
  • $80 million diverted by the family of Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who was convicted of corruption in 2015. Fujimori had already gotten a 25-year sentence in 2009 for ordering the deaths of twenty people in 2005, and the sentence for embezzlement will run concurrent to his murder sentence.
The United Kingdom has also returned to Nigeria funds that Sani Abacha had sheltered in Jersey in the Channel Islands.
Following the Iraq War in 2003, the United States and its allies seized more than $2 billion from the family of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the single largest restitution to date, which was slated to be used to rebuild Iraq..