Facts:

Mr. IB misappropriated funds coming from the company Park Hotel in the Country R. He transferred these illicit assets to bank accounts in Country R and finally to bank accounts under his own name in Country B. The company Park Hotel, that join a civil action to the criminal proceeding, gave illegally obtained records of the accounts of Mr. IB to show the correlation between the missing funds and the transfers realized by Mr. IB.

The main issue:

Two major issues can be distinguished in the present case.

The first one concerns the use by the civil party of an illegally obtained evidence. The judges of the Cour de cassation answered on this point by reminding that an evidence will be excluded only if the form irregularity lead to its nullity. This is the case only when the irregularity endangers the reliability of the evidence or the right to a fair trial. The judges of the Court of Appeal were therefore not obliged to exclude the evidence in this situation.

The second issue regards the competency of the Country B judicial authorities to prosecute the appellant. Mr. IB raised that Country B was not competent since the predicate offence was committed in Country R and he had not been convicted for this offence there. The judges of the Cour de Cassation considered that as soon as the fact constitutive of the offence of money-laundering have been committed in the Belgium national territory of Country B, the judicial authorities were competent. Conviction for money-laundering does not require a Public action to be exercised for the predicate offence in the other State and does not even require this offence to be identified by the  judges of Country B.