CAMEROON Trends and Developments Contributed by: Michel Aaron Feugueng and Ida Tchamde Feugueng, Maaron Law Firm
The Digitalisation of Fraud: Cyber-Enabled Financial Crime and the Legal Response Cameroon has experienced a sharp increase in cyber- enabled fraud over the past three years, encompass - ing business email compromise, online investment fraud, identity theft and the misappropriation of digi - tal financial assets. The CEMAC zone’s expanding mobile money ecosystem – with Cameroon hosting the region’s largest mobile money market – has cre - ated new attack surfaces that fraudsters are increas - ingly exploiting. The legal framework The primary legislative response is Law No 2010/012 of 21 December 2010 on Cybersecurity and Cyber - crime, which criminalises computer fraud, illegal access to information systems, and electronic data manipulation. The law provides prosecutors with the authority to seize electronic devices, compel tel - ecommunications providers to produce metadata, and request international co-operation in cybercrime investigations. Courts have increasingly relied on elec - tronic forensic evidence in fraud proceedings, and the competent authorities have developed dedicated cybercrime investigation units. However, significant gaps remain. The 2010 law pre- dates the current generation of fraud schemes and does not specifically address decentralised finance, blockchain-based fraud or AI-assisted manipulation. Practitioners advising victims of cyber-enabled fraud must therefore navigate a framework that was not designed for the instruments being misused – requir - ing creative application of general fraud, forgery and misappropriation provisions of the Penal Code along - Cameroon does not yet have dedicated legisla - tion classifying crypto-assets as property for legal purposes. However, CEMAC Regulation No 02/18/ CEMAC/UMAC/CM of 21 December 2018 extended anti-money laundering obligations to virtual asset ser - vice providers, and courts have demonstrated a will - ingness to treat crypto-assets as attachable assets in enforcement proceedings. The Financial Intelligence Unit (ANIF) has issued administrative freezing orders side the specific cybercrime provisions. Crypto-assets: a regulatory frontier
being an obstacle to recovery – is in fact a powerful asset recovery toolkit, directly applicable and enforce - able across all 17 member States without the need for exequatur. The AUPSRVE: a unified enforcement mechanism The OHADA Uniform Act on Simplified Recovery Pro - cedures and Measures of Execution (AUPSRVE, as revised in September 2015) provides creditors with a suite of remedies that compares favourably with any civil law enforcement system in the world. The con - servatory attachment ( saisie conservatoire ), judicial mortgage ( hypothèque judiciaire provisoire ), attach - ment of bank accounts ( saisie-attribution ) and sei - zure and sale of movable assets ( saisie-vente ) are all available ex parte on the basis of an apparently well- founded claim, without the need for a prior judgment. Third parties – including banks – that fail to comply with a validly served attachment order are rendered jointly and severally liable for the full amount of the creditor’s claim. What makes the AUPSRVE particularly powerful in fraud cases is its direct applicability across the entire OHADA zone. A conservatory attachment obtained before a Cameroonian court can be enforced in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Gabon or any other OHADA mem - ber State by simple notification, without further judi - cial proceedings. For fraudsters who have dispersed assets across multiple OHADA jurisdictions – a com - mon defensive strategy – this creates a unified recov - ery front that is difficult to resist. The CCJA: a supranational appellate court The OHADA Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA), seated in Abidjan, exercises final appellate jurisdiction over all disputes relating to OHADA Uni - form Acts across all 17 member States. Judgments of the CCJA are directly enforceable throughout the OHADA zone without exequatur. For complex multi- jurisdictional fraud cases, the ability to obtain a single binding ruling from the CCJA – applicable simultane - ously across 17 jurisdictions – is a strategic advantage that few international frameworks can match.
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