Asset forfeiture in Georgia reaches the enforcement stage through the Law of Georgia on Enforcement Proceedings. Confiscation as a sanction is imposed by the criminal or the administrative court; the enforcement law then determines which decisions are subject to execution and how the actual taking of property proceeds — seizure, inventory and realisation. This page explains that machinery under Articles 2, 40, 44, 45 and 49 of the law.
Which decisions on forfeiture are enforceable
Under subparagraph 'b' of Article 2, a court conviction in a criminal case that has entered into legal force, imposing a fine and/or deprivation of property on a natural and/or legal person as a penalty, is subject to execution under this law. Subparagraph 'b1' adds the conviction imposing on the person the obligation to pay compensation to the victim.
On the administrative track, subparagraph 'd' makes enforceable the court decision in an administrative-offence case that has entered into legal force, in the part imposing property payment and an administrative fine. The law thus distinguishes criminal confiscation, victim compensation and administrative property sanctions — but the machinery of execution is common to all of them. Among enforceable titles the law also lists the notarial act, the pledge certificate, an arbitration award, a decision of a foreign court and a decision of the European Court of Human Rights binding on Georgia.
Execution of deprivation and the seizure
Forfeiture begins with seizure of movable property: under the first part of Article 40, this means the description of the debtor's property, the declared prohibition of disposal — alienation, pledge, lease or rental — and/or transfer of the property for safekeeping, with the enforcement officer recording the items in the description-and-seizure act. Once the seizure is imposed, any transaction over the property is void, and any attempted disposal triggers liability under criminal legislation.
Seized money is immediately deposited into the deposit account of the National Enforcement Bureau; securities and valuables are kept in a specially allocated guarded room. Where a third person asserts a right over the property during the seizure, the item is still entered into the act with a note, and that person has the right to sue for release of the property from seizure. Where the third person presents a document confirming ownership, the enforcement officer, with the creditor’s consent, may strike the property from the act; fruit not yet detached from the soil may be seized until enforcement against immovable property takes place, but not earlier than one month before the harvest.