To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases the Assets Recovery Agency had under investigation with a view to civil recovery or taxation action in which no action to restrain assets had yet been taken as at 31 March 2008; what the estimated value of the assets under investigation in those cases was; how many of those investigations were subsequently terminated by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency without court action; what the reasons for the termination were in those cases; what the estimated value of assets in terminated cases was; and in respect of such terminated cases, what steps have been taken to remove relevant assets from criminals. (243622)

Data relating to the transfer of cases from the Assets Recovery Agency to the Serious Organised Crime Agency were not collated to this level of detail, as there would be no operational value and some cost in doing so. This information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost (through manual collation from case files). SOCA has terminated 10 cases since the merger, in which no Property Freezing Order/Interim Receiving Order or Recovery Order had been granted as at 31 March 2008. The reasons for terminating these cases were:

no assets to recover (1)

insufficient evidence to link assets to criminality (5)

further evidence of criminality found—case referred for criminal investigation (3)

case erroneously referred—criminal case still under appeal (1).

In these cases either there were no assets to recover, or insufficient evidence, or an ongoing criminal investigation which rendered any assets outside the scope of the civil recovery powers.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases the Assets Recovery Agency transferred to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) on 31 March 2008 in which proceedings for civil recovery on taxation investigation had been initiated; what the estimated value of assets restrained in those cases was; how many of those cases were terminated by SOCA without asset recovery; what the reasons were for termination in each such case; what the estimated value of assets in cases so terminated was; how many such inherited cases not terminated have been completed by obtaining a civil recovery order or consentor; in how many such cases (a) a tax settlement been agreed and (b) a judgment from Special Commissioners has been obtained; what the value of such orders and settlements is; and what the value of assets restrained in such cases is. (243791)

Data relating to the transfer of cases from the Assets Recovery Agency to the Serious Organised Crime Agency were not collated to this level of detail, as there would be no operational value and some cost in doing so. This information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost (through manual collation from case files). SOCA has terminated one case without recovering assets, where civil recovery proceedings had been initiated as at 31 March 2008. The reason for terminating the case was that there were no assets left to recover. As regards the value of civil recovery orders and tax settlements, figures for SOCA's UK-wide performance on asset recovery for the financial year 2008-09 are subject to internal validation and will be included in its Annual Report for 2008-09, when published.