National criminal jurisdiction over transnational financial crimes

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the international standards for establishing national jurisdiction over the transnational crimes of money laundering and bribery and identify challenges to the adoption of those standards by different states in practice. Design/methodology/approach - This paper, first, defines transnational money laundering and transnational bribery; then, it examines the legal bases and principles on which a state can claim criminal jurisdiction over these offences. This paper also discusses the application of jurisdictional conditions in a transnational context and how to deal with the problems arising from national claim of jurisdiction over these offences, for example, jurisdictional concurrence. Findings - This paper argues that when the jurisdictional concurrence occurs, the involved states should consult one another by taking into account a number of relevant factors and take the “centre of gravity” approach to deciding which state or forum should prosecute eventually. States less able to establish jurisdiction over the offences are often those which have a weak legal basis and/or insufficient resources. Originality/value - To the authors’ knowledge, this article would be the good guidance on how a state could claim jurisdiction over the offences of transnational money laundering and transnational bribery.