The Commission had already told the requesting bureau, across two earlier sessions, that the conduct described did not appear to be a crime. Given a further chance to explain, the bureau still did not close the gap. The data were deleted — a case study in what happens when a bureau is asked twice and answers neither time.
A dispute that stayed a dispute
The notice arose from a contract between two companies that was later terminated. The applicant said the other company had been unable to perform its side of the agreement, that the contract was ended on due notice, and that all sums owed under it had been paid in full — facts, he said, the notifying authorities themselves did not dispute. His position was that the whole matter remained what it started as: a private commercial dispute.
Two sessions, and no closing of the gap
What makes this decision distinctive is its procedural history. The Commission had studied the case at two earlier sessions and had already told the requesting bureau it was concerned that the described conduct did not appear to constitute a criminal offence. The bureau replied more than once, but its later submissions did not resolve that concern.
- That the applicant signed contracts in the company’s name was established — nobody disputed the underlying paperwork.
- What was never supplied was an account of how failing to notify the other company, or any other specific act, turned an ordinary breach into a criminal offence.
- The bureau also referred to an additional charge against the applicant, but provided no facts to support it at all.
- Rules governing Red Notices bar their use for private and administrative matters, and require sufficient facts demonstrating effective personal participation in a criminal offence — and after two rounds of correspondence, that requirement remained unmet.
Why persistence by the applicant, not a single strong argument, won this case
No single fact in this decision is dramatic. What carried the case was structural: a concern raised early, repeated, and never answered. Applicants facing a similar commercial-dispute notice should take from this that the Commission does give requesting bureaux more than one opportunity to supply the missing link between a contract dispute and a criminal charge — and that a bureau’s failure to use those opportunities becomes part of the record working against it. Filing a request for reconsideration when a bureau’s answer plainly does not engage with the Commission’s stated concern is not wasted effort; it is how a case like this one gets built.
Reading a bureau’s second answer critically
Most applicants treat a bureau’s reply as the end of the exchange. This decision shows why that is a mistake when the Commission has already flagged a specific concern. A second submission that restates the notice, adds procedural detail, or raises an additional unsupported charge — without ever supplying the missing description of criminal conduct — has not actually answered the question asked of it, however lengthy it appears.
The useful discipline, when a case has already drawn a stated concern from the Commission, is to compare the bureau’s new submission against that concern sentence by sentence: does it identify a specific deceptive act, at a specific moment, attributable to this person individually? If it does not, the submission has changed nothing regardless of its length, and that gap is worth stating plainly in any further filing.
Decision extract published by INTERPOL · catalogue reference ccf-2017-08 · 2017 · Red Notice · data deleted. Read the full extract (PDF). Source: interpol.int. Names, countries and dates are redacted in the published extract.
If your case has already been reviewed once and the concern raised was never properly answered, that unanswered concern is itself an asset. Send us the correspondence so far and we will tell you whether the gap the Commission identified has actually been closed.
When a bureau fails to answer the Commission twice
The Commission already raised concerns about my case once. What happens next?
It can, and often does, give the requesting bureau further opportunities to respond before deciding. If those responses do not resolve the original concern, that pattern itself supports a finding that the minimum criteria for the notice have not been met.
Does it matter that I paid everything owed under the contract?
It can support the argument that the matter is a resolved commercial dispute rather than an ongoing criminal scheme, particularly where the other company does not dispute that payment was made.
Can a bureau add extra charges without evidence?
Not usefully. Where a bureau mentions an additional charge but supplies no facts to support it, the Commission has treated that charge as carrying no weight in its analysis.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your situation, please consult a qualified lawyer.