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. Biens mal acquis are government funds from former colonies of Françafrique, 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 also against the Marcos family and the estate of Sani Abacha.
Biens mal acquis
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". In a March 2007 report by the Catholic Committee Against Hunger and for Development (CCFD), 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), enumerates known instances of kleptocracy in African dictatorships, estimating 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 state to personal accounts, from corruption or from kickbacks. Their owners often use opaque methods to hide their capital, assured of impunity, particularly due to tax havens, and also assured 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.