Bulgaria to Seize Illegally Acquired Assets without Court Ruling

Stoyan Kushlev is head of the parliamentary committee in charge of seizing the illegally acquired assets in favor of the state, named after him. Photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian state will have the right to seize property and assets, worth more than BGN 60,000, whose acquisition can not be explained by the owners, even prior to a court ruling.

This is envisaged by a new bill for seizing illegally acquired assets in favor of the state, which was presented at a press conference on Wednesday by Georgi Iliev, Chief Secretary of the so-called "Kushlev" parliamentary committee in charge of that.

The movers claim this is radically new legislation for Bulgaria, which taps the experience of Franfe, Italy and other countries and builds on the presumption that assets are considered to have been illegally acquired when the owner can't explain properly their acquisition.

The proposed bill does not envisage changes in the line-up of "Kushlev" parliamentary committee, but Iliev said it will be depoliticized.

The European Commission has harshly criticized Bulgaria in a number of reports about its failure to tackle cases of illegally acquired assets and the lack of regulations to deal with them.

“It is namely the lack of correct legislation that has allowed many to trot out their illegally acquired wealth,” Rosen Kozhuharov from the Justice Ministry said at the press conference.

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