The British and Canadian Governments will be jointly hosting a seminar on Asset Seizure and Confiscation of Assets for judges of the Barbados Supreme Court.??
The conference will be officially opened at the Supreme Court, Whitepark Road, on Tuesday, December 1.????
Participants will include Chief Justice Sir David Simmons and judges of Barbados’ Supreme Court.
The Attorney General of the United Kingdom, the Rt. Hon. Baroness Scotland, QC, will make a special presentation by video during the opening ceremony.
The initiative is sponsored by the Canadian High Commission and the UK Security Advisory Team (UKSAT) based at the British High Commission in Barbados.?? UKSAT engages in capacity building of local law enforcement agencies in English-speaking countries in the region.??
The advisory team assists the region in tackling organised crime through financial investigations, by using Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime legislation. This has required training and mentoring at various levels, including: improving investigative skills of police and Financial Investigation Units, enhancing the prosecutorial units in the region and sensitising Judges in money laundering and asset confiscation.
UKSAT has already delivered training to police officers and prosecutors in the Eastern Caribbean to improve their skills in this area.??
The facilitators of the conference are experts in the field. London-based barrister Mark Sutherland Williams is a specialist in proceeds of crime and asset recovery law.?? He has appeared in numerous high profile confiscation, condemnation, asset recovery and cash seizure cases in the last 15 years. He is the co-author of one of the main practitioner texts on asset forfeiture, "The Proceeds of Crime: Law and Practice of Restraint, Confiscation, Condemnation and Forfeiture".
His Honour Judge James P. Wadsworth, QC has been in the legal field for over 37 years. As a Judge, he sits in the principal court in the UK for fraud and white collar crime and has been involved in a number of significant money laundering and asset confiscation cases. He is deemed to be one of the UK’s leading judges in these areas.