UK court dismisses UWO appeal by wife of imprisoned Azeri banker

The highest court in the United Kingdom has upheld the Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) placed on the wife of a jailed Azerbaijani banker, Zamira Hajiyeva, by a lower court. The UK court, accordingly, dismissed an appeal by Zamira Hajiyeva, seeking the upturning of a legal order demanding her to explain the means through which she acquired two high-value property in the UK. The Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) was issued to Zamira Hajiyeva in 2018, who is the first-ever to be issued such order. She is now compelled to provide investigators with information regarding her purchase of a luxury Knightsbridge mansion in London and a golf course in the county of Berkshire.

A senior official at the National Crime Agency, Graeme Biggar, who is working on the order, commended the order as a “significant result”, noting it is an important step in establishing the relatively new measures “as a powerful tool for financial investigations.”

Biggar in an emailed statement on Monday, declared that “There are no further routes for Mrs. Hajiyeva to appeal against the order,” saying that the recent ruling “will set a helpful precedent for future UWO cases.”

It was highlighted that UWOs introduced in 2018, are civil orders against high-value assets that require the owners of those holdings to disclose to authorities how the items came into their possession.

It was gathered that the measures are not designed as a punishment in and of themselves, instead serving as a fact-finding tool that may later serve as a basis for confiscation.

It was widely hoped that UWOs would help remedy the United Kingdom’s international reputation as a key transit and destination country for dirty money.

An anti-corruption watchdog and OCCRP partner Transparency International, indicated that authorities estimated that an excess of 100 billion pounds has been laundered through the U.K. every year by corrupt officials, rogue states, and transnational organised crime networks.