Eurojust Report on the Transfer of Proceedings in the European Union

52009IG0912(01), Initiative of the Kingdom of Belgium, the Republic of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Republic of Estonia, the Hellenic Republic, the Kingdom of Spain, the French Republic, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, Republic of Hungary, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Romania, the Republic of Slovenia, the Slovak Republic and the Kingdom of Sweden. [...] Effects of the transfer of proceedings in the requesting State While, in general, a decision to transfer the proceedings to another Member State ends jurisdiction on the case in the requesting State and limits its rights to prosecute, the specific consequences of the transfer on the original proceedings in the requesting State differ significantly depending on the applicable national provisions. [...] Furthermore, the authorities involved also found an agreement on the information to be transmitted and on the issue of translations: to accelerate the procedure, the receiving Member State did not request a translation of the entire case file, rather the requesting Member State only prepared and translated a summary of its proceedings together with an index of the contents of the case file. [...] Practical issues with the transfer of the case file Once accepted, a transfer of proceedings entails the forwarding to the receiving Member State of all evidence, records and documents included in the case file of the criminal proceedings in the requesting State. [...] On the contrary, the national legislation of the requesting Member State was clear in excluding such a possibility, so that in the absence of any freezing certificate from the receiving State, the assets had to be restituted to the suspect following the transfer of proceedings.