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MONACO LAW REVIEW | DECEMBER 2025 | SPECIAL REPORT
Furthermore, to safeguard the rights of the parties-and in
particular the convicted person’s right of appeal-Article 660
of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that, where the
last day of a time limit falls on a public holiday or a Saturday,
the deadline shall be extended to the next working day.
It is the daily task of the Public Prosecutor and of the registry, in
every case, to ensure that judicial decisions become fi nal so that
they may be enforced, by transmitting them, as appropriate,
directly to bailiffs, to the Monaco Police Department, to French
prosecutors, or, through the central authorities, to foreign judicial
authorities, for the purposes of locating the convicted person and
arranging service or notifi cation.
• An Enforceable Decision
The legislator has provided that certain convictions or certain
types of penalties are to be enforced without waiting for the
decision imposing the conviction or penalty to become fi nal.
These are convictions or penalties that are enforceable as of right,
without the trial court needing to rule on provisional enforcement.
Thus, for example, default judgments delivered by the
Tribunal de simple police or the Tribunal correctionnel are
enforceable as of right once the time limit for opposition has
expired - a period which usually begins following service
at the Public Prosecutor’s Offi ce - without prejudice to the
convicted person’s ability to lodge an opposition when the
judgment is personally served or notifi ed15
.
This is also particularly the case for confi scation orders and
ancillary penalties since the reform introduced by Law No.
1.553 of 7 December 2023 which, as from 1 January 2024,
provides under Article 408 of the Code of Criminal Procedure
that contradictory judgments requiring service are enforceable
“from the date of service at the domicile or declared address or,
failing that, at the Public Prosecutor’s Offi ce” in respect of the
unsuspended custodial element of the sentence they contain,
as well as any ancillary penalties and confi scation orders.
Practical Enforcement and Types of
Confi scated Assets
The practical enforcement of confi scation (whether fi nal or
enforceable as of right) will vary depending on the nature of
the asset to which the confi scation relates.
Previously, seized cash or amounts credited to a bank account
were handed over to the Treasury for allocation to the State
budget. Confi scation of vehicles required the entry of the
sanction in the vehicle register and the organisation of a sale.
Confi scated immovable property, shares or business assets
likewise had to be entered, before being sold, in the relevant
administrative registers (special companies register, register
of transcriptions and mortgage entries, etc.).
The welcome creation of the Offi ce for the Management of
Seized and Confi scated Assets (SGA) made it possible to
transfer to that offi ce the practical enforcement of confi scation
penalties, as well as the enforcement of confi scations - or,
more precisely, decisions of non-restitution16 - ordered by the
Public Prosecutor under the new Article 38-2 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure since 1 January 2024.
However, the enforcement of a confi scation order, whether
carried out directly by the Public Prosecutor or entrusted to the
SGA, is subject to a limitation: the limitation period applicable
to the penalty, in addition to the third-party opposition
procedure open to third parties affected by the seizure under
the eighth paragraph of Article 12 of the Criminal Code.
Enhancing the Effectiveness of Confi scation
This general framework has a specifi c feature in money-
laundering matters as regards the limitation period for the
penalty. This specifi city is not exclusive, since it is shared
with drug-traffi cking offences and serious offences: the
limitation period for penalties imposed for those offences is
twenty years, whereas the limitation period for penalties for
other intermediate offences is fi ve years and that for minor
offences is three years17
.
A legislative reform in two stages in 2024, through Laws No. 1.553
of 7 December 2003 and No. 1.559 of 29 February 2024, signifi cantly
strengthened the effectiveness of enforcement of penalties in
general - and thus of confi scation - by creating additional causes
of interruption of the limitation period (whereas previously, only
enforcement of the penalty interrupted limitation).
Thus, since 31 March 2024, Article 633 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure provides that the limitation period is also
interrupted by any new conviction, even if not fi nal, delivered
by a Monegasque or foreign court imposing an unsuspended
custodial sentence, and by decisions or acts of the Public
Prosecutor, the Sentence Enforcement Judge, the SGA and the
Department of Tax Services “which are aimed at its enforcement”.
In future, Article 12 of the Criminal Code - the legal basis for
confi scation - will likely continue to evolve so as to allow value-
based seizures without limitation based on the offender’s
assets, and perhaps to change the very nature of Article 12 so
that it becomes not merely a mechanism for restoring the social
and patrimonial balance disrupted by the offence, but a true
penalty, allowing for the general confi scation of the offender’s
assets where the offender has committed offences that generate
particularly signifi cant profi ts.
“The effectiveness of enforcement
of penalties in general - and thus
of confiscation - was strengthened
by creating additional causes of
interruption of the limitation
period.”
15|Articles 438 and 383 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
16|Different terminology, but an identical consequence for the convicted person or the person
concerned in terms of enforcement.
17|Articles 631 and 632 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Article 4-5 of Law No. 890 of 1
July 1970 on narcotic drugs.
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