Financial crime in the EU. Criminal records as effective tools or missed opportunities?

Abstract:

This work examines the use of national criminal records as a means of fighting organised crime within the national legal orders of EU Member States.

The work is organised over eighteen chapters. The first gives the background to the project and the methodology of approach. Chapter two endeavours to assess the extent to which EU legislation on public procurement and money laundering makes use of the data included in national criminal records as a means of combating organised crime. Chapter three explores the political parameters surrounding the use of national criminal records in the fight against organised crime. The fourth chapter considers inter-state use of and access to data based on national criminal records in the context of compliance with human rights standards, and looks at the specific conditions under which such compliance can be achieved. Chapters five to sixteen present country specific case studies on the role of criminal records in combating organised crime. The countries covered are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England and Wales, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Chapter seventeen examines the use of criminal records in the EU and discusses possible ways forward for cooperation. The final chapter provides the concluding remarks of the authors and endorses the findings of the work - that ‘discrepancies in the content, use and access to criminal records within Member States renders them inadequate and inefficient against the increasing mobility amongst EU citizens as a result of their enjoyment of the four EU freedoms.’

The work will interest scholars and students engaged in criminal studies, practitioners, policy researchers and policy makers at work in law and administration.