GOGITIDZE AND OTHERS v. GEORGIA JUDGMENT 15 76. This provision underlines in particular the need to apply such measures also to proceeds which have been intermingled with property acquired from legitimate sources or which has been otherwise transformed or converted.” E. Financial Action Task Force 65. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was established in July 1989 as an inter-governmental group by a Group of Seven (G-7) Summit in Paris. It has since been globally recognised as an authoritative body setting universal standards and developing policies for combating, amongst other, money laundering. In 2003 it issued a specific recommendation, which was endorsed by Georgia, calling for confiscation even in the absence of a prior criminal conviction (known as Recommendation no. 3): “Provisional measures and confiscation 3. ... Countries may consider adopting measures that allow such proceeds or instrumentalities to be confiscated without requiring a criminal conviction, or which require an offender to demonstrate the lawful origin of the property alleged to be liable to confiscation, to the extent that such a requirement is consistent with the principles of their domestic law.” F. The Council of Europe Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) 66. In its First Evaluation Report on Georgia, which concerned a visit to the country by a team of examiners between 23 and 26 October 2000, MONEYVAL observed and recommended the following: “2. The main areas generating illegal proceeds and seriously jeopardising the economic development of Georgia are corruption, fraud and tax evasion as well as smuggling in goods. ... 6. The examiners consider that the seizure and confiscation regime should be reviewed and brought up to internationally accepted standards. ...In the view of the examiners, the confiscation procedure should conform to the requirements of the Strasbourg Convention – with the introduction of the possibility of confiscating instrumentalities and proceeds, and if they have been altered into another kind of property, the corresponding value may be confiscated.” 67. In the context of a second evaluation visit to Georgia by a MONEYVAL team of examiners, which took place between 21 and 23 May 2003, the Second Round Evaluation Report again criticised the domestic authorities for lacunae in the legal framework concerning the confiscation of proceeds of crime: “8. ... [V]alue confiscation was not regulated in Georgian legislation at the time of the on-site visit. Indeed, the absence of a real measure of confiscation was given as one of the prime reasons for the lack of money laundering investigations or prosecutions. There needs to be a completion of the legal framework to create an