AFO
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Account Freezing Orders pursuant to Criminal Finances Act 2017
An Account Freezing Order (AFO) is an application usually brought by an agency such as HMRC or the SFO to the Magistrates Court in order to freeze a UK bank or building society account (with the account having a minimum amount of £1,000; be it a personal or business account) and attempt to preserve assets for forfeiture.
An AFO follows a civil standard of proof and therefore the requirement is for the prosecution agency to prove any allegations on the balance of probabilities.
To apply for such an AFO, the prosecution agency must have reasonable grounds for suspecting that money held in an account is recoverable property (obtained through unlawful conduct) or is intended by any person for use in unlawful conduct.
We have an outstanding success rate in assisting clients with such orders from helping demonstrate to the prosecution agencies the legitimate origin of the funds in order for it to be discharged, to assisting clients to make an application to the Magistrates Court for an exclusion in order to vary the AFO to allow them to meet their reasonable living expenses and carry on any trade or business or even in some cases to pay their respective legal expenses.
Cases:
West Yorkshire Police discharged the application for an Account Freezing Order after submissions and evidence was presented to them regarding the source of the monies held within the frozen bank account.
West Yorkshire Police discharged the application for an Account Freezing Order after submissions and evidence was presented to them regarding the source of the monies held within the frozen bank account.
Discharge of Account Freezing Order after making submissions to Cleveland Police Economic Crime Unit regarding the legitimate source of the monies held within the frozen bank account.
After submitting evidence to HMRC including a detailed forensic accountant’s report, HMRC accepted that the funds held in the bank account derived from a legitimate source and the AFO was discharged.
We were also successful during the proceedings of obtaining an ‘exception’ to allow some of the frozen funds to be used for legal expenses.