Commentary on Sections Part 5: Civil Recovery of the Proceeds etc. of Unlawful Conduct Schedule 7: Powers of trustee for civil recovery Section 278: Limit on recovery
375.Subject to certain safeguards described elsewhere (e.g. for bona fide purchasers), property is recoverable if:
	it was obtained through unlawful conduct, or
	it ‘represents’ property obtained through unlawful conduct.
376.Under section 305, property may come to ‘represent’ the original property where a person has disposed of the original property and has obtained other property in place of it. Moreover, property obtained in place of representative property may itself become representative property. Under subsection (2), items of original and representative property are to be treated as ‘related’ property. If property is recoverable, it may remain recoverable after passing through several hands in a series of transactions. The right of the enforcement authority to trace its claim over the recoverable property is analogous to similar tracing rights in civil law proprietary litigation. Either original or representative property may be traced in this way.
377.However, there is potential for a large family of related property to grow up as a result of such a series of transactions, comprising the original property and several items of representative property. Each of these items will potentially be recoverable. But if the enforcement authority were to recover the entire family of recoverable property, that would be disproportionate to its primary right to recover the original property.
378.Section 278 addresses this situation by providing a series of rules designed to ensure that if the enforcement authority seeks to recover items of related property, rather than confining itself to the original property, the court is able to limit its recovery order to what it thinks is necessary to satisfy the enforcement authority’s right to recover the original property.
379.For example, the provisions ensure that the enforcement authority cannot recover representative property in addition to the original property. If the enforcement authority pursues more than one avenue of recovery simultaneously, for example where the original property cannot be found, the court has some flexibility under subsections (4) and (5) as to how the enforcement authority’s interest should be satisfied. The court may order full recovery of some items of the related property but not others; or it may order partial recovery of some or all of the items; or a combination of both.
380.Nothing in this section prevents a court, where it makes a recovery order in respect of property, from also ordering the recovery of any profits that have accrued in respect of that property (subsection (6)).
381.If a forfeiture order has been made under section 298 in respect of cash which was found to constitute recoverable property, it is to be treated for the purpose of this section as though it were a recovery order, so that the limitations on recovery in this section will apply (subsection (7)). This ensures that the proceeds of the same criminal conduct cannot be recovered twice, first through the cash forfeiture scheme in Chapter 3 and then again through civil recovery.
382.Similarly, subsection (8) ensures that the enforcement authority cannot secure an order under the civil recovery scheme if the property that was obtained through the unlawful conduct concerned, or property which represents it, has already been recovered by the victim of the conduct in civil litigation. And subsections (9) and (10) make similar provision in respect of property which has been taken into account in deciding a person’s benefit from criminal conduct for the purposes of making a confiscation order under Parts 2, 3 or 4 of the Act or corresponding provisions.