Civil forfeiture or, as the law defines it, the recognition of unjustified assets and their recovery for the benefit of the state—is a way to confiscate an official’s property through court proceedings if that official cannot prove its lawful origin. Importantly, the state does not first need to prove the person’s guilt in a criminal case to recover the assets.

Such cases are heard by the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC). Claims are usually filed only by SAPO prosecutors, although there are exceptions: if the claim concerns NABU officers or SAPO itself, prosecutors from the Office of the Prosecutor General may file it.

The essence of the mechanism

This mechanism became fully operational in 2019. The current law defines its key features as follows:

• The preponderance of evidence standard — the court decides the case in favor of the party whose evidence is more convincing. Unlike criminal cases, there is no need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; it is enough for one version of events to be more persuasive than the other
• A claim against the asset, not the person — although the defendant is a specific individual, the subject of the dispute is the property itself, such as an apartment, a car, or a bank account
• Allocation of the burden of proof — first, the state must prove that the property belongs to the official and significantly exceeds that official’s declared income. After that, the owner must prove the lawful origin of the property.

It is important to note that civil forfeiture focuses specifically on the unlawful acquisition of assets rather than on proving a person’s guilt. The assets in question may take many forms: money, property rights, real estate, intangible assets such as cryptocurrency, works or services provided to an authorized person, and so on.

A civil forfeiture claim may be brought only if both of the following conditions are met:

FIRST: The property was acquired after November 28, 2019, the date when the law entered into force.

SECOND: There is a discrepancy between lawful income and the value of the assets that exceeds UAH 1,003,500 but is less than 3,000 subsistence minimums for able-bodied persons, which as of January 1, 2026, amounts to UAH 9,984,000.

How does it work in practice?

Here is how this mechanism works step by step, using one of the civil forfeiture cases that has already gone through cassation review:

1. Status of the person: On December 11, 2020, the person became a village council member and therefore a declarant subject to asset declaration requirements.
2. Acquisition of the asset: On August 10, 2021, the council member purchased a Mercedes-Benz S 450 4MATIC worth UAH 3,617,388.02.
3. Detection of the discrepancy: The NACP conducted lifestyle monitoring, a special procedure aimed at identifying gaps between an official’s actual expenditures and lawful income, while SAPO established that the spouses’ lawful income, including a loan of UAH 1.4 million, amounted to only UAH 1,751,485.10.
4. Filing of the claim: A SAPO prosecutor filed a civil forfeiture claim because the gap between the car’s value and the lawful income exceeded UAH 1.8 million.
5. Defense arguments: In court, the council member claimed that his wife had borrowed UAH 2.1 million in cash from an acquaintance, although these funds had not been disclosed in the asset declaration.
6. Assessment of the evidence: The court found that the person who had allegedly provided the loan did not have sufficient funds to do so.
7. Court ruling: The HACC found part of the value of the car (54.17%) to be unjustified and ordered the council member to pay its monetary equivalent to the state, amounting to UAH 1,959,817.69.
8. Final verdict: On May 15, 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the HACC ruling unchanged.

International legal context and enforcement trends

Civil forfeiture was introduced in Ukraine not only because of public demand for justice, but also as a mandatory condition for EU accession. This mechanism is consistent with international standards set by the UN and the Council of Europe: it allows the state to recover from official assets whose origin cannot be explained by that official’s declared income.

Although civil forfeiture is a relatively new institution in Ukraine, its effectiveness has increased over time. The first such claim was filed in 2021 in relation to MP Illia Kyva’s unjustified income from leasing out a beet pulp pit. The court found that the politician had no lawful grounds to dispose of the land plot and that the agreement itself served merely as a cover for laundering funds of questionable origin. This case became a successful precedent, allowing UAH 1.25 million to be recovered for the benefit of the state without a criminal conviction.

A more detailed overview of the results and trends in the use of this mechanism in 2025 is set out in our analytical article. Still, it is worth emphasizing here that the number of claims clearly shows the scaling-up of this tool: while 7 claim proceedings were opened in 2023 and 16 in 2024, SAPO filed 45 civil forfeiture claims in 2025 alone. This threefold increase shows that civil forfeiture has definitively evolved from an experimental legal provision into the state’s main financial weapon against corruption.