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 (English: Ill-Gotten Goods... Too Often Do Benefit: Western Complacency and the Wealth of Dictators) 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 (CNCD), 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 BongoData published by La Tribune December 3, 2008, and originating from the investigation of the OCRGDF following the March 2007 complaint brought by three French non-profits. 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 Nguesso avenue Niel, 75017 Paris. 9-room apartment, 328 m2, bought for €2.47 million in 2007 8 bank accounts (stockbroker and checking accounts) at Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) 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 Nguema Mbasogo Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue - Vice President of Equatorial Guinea and son of Teodoro Obiang. Three Bugatti Veyrons, €1,196,000 each 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 (£260 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(s).
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..
Current expropriation proceedings
Spain In May 2009, the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor requested a money-laundering investigation of the accounts and investments in Spain of the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, following a complaint filed in December 2008 by the Asociacion pro derechos humanos de España (APDHE). The association was concerned by a transfer of roughly €19 million between 2000 and 2003 from the US bank Riggs Bank to an account in a Spanish bank in the Balearic Islands.
France Laws put into effect after the liberation of France in the Second World War targeted illegitimate profits accrued during the German occupation, in the black market or through simple theft. The ordinances of October 18, 1944 and January 6, 1945, drew inspiration from the following principle: "The most elementary fiscal justice requires that all gains made possible by the presence of the enemy be returned to the public treasury. It is unacceptable that while the nation became impoverished some enriched themselves at its expense."
Citing this precedent, in March 2007 Survie, the Sherpa Association and the Fédération des Congolais de la Diaspora filed charges of conspiracy and concealment of diversion of funds in the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris against five heads of African states and their families: Omar Bongo Ondimba (Gabon), Denis Sassou Nguesso (Republic of Congo) Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso) Eduardo Dos Santos (Angola) Teodoro Obiang (Equatorial Guinea)