ABSTRACT
Kuwaiti law has long taken action against forms of ‘dirty money.’ This action is embodied in the legal responses provided by the Protection of Public Funds Act 1993, the Anti-Corruption Authority Act 2016, and the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Finance of Terrorism Act 2013. These laws included interim and provisional measures that aimed to protect public funds from being disposed of or hidden (freezing and seizure orders), financial disclosure systems to expose any potential illicit enrichment, strict measures to prevent and detect money laundering activities, and asset recovery measures, including confiscation orders. The focus of this chapter will be on three Kuwaiti corruption offences: crimes against the public purse, the offence of illicit enrichment, and the offence of money laundering. Despite the legal responses, the development of legal tools that deal with the proceeds of such crimes does not match up to the problem of corruption. Both civil forfeiture and unexplained wealth orders are two innovative legal tools that are noticeably absent in Kuwait. It is argued that Kuwait’s failure to adopt these innovative approaches is due to two reasons: the nature of Kuwait’s characteristics as a nation state and the absence of external, sufficiently coercive pressures that might induce Kuwait to develop its laws.
