The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) was established on the basis of the Decision of European Commission dated 28. 4. 199 and as such it replaced the Coordination Unit for Fraud Prevention (UCLAF) operating within the frame of the Commission. OLAF is responsible for protection of financial and economic interests of the EU, combatting fraud and corruption, whereas it conducts in particular administrative investigation and therein it cooperates with the competent authorities of EU Member States. Supervision over the investigations in entrusted to the OLAF Supervisory Committee composed of five publically known and independent individuals appointed jointly by the Parliament, Commission and Council.
The Prosecutor General’s Office is the contact point for forwarding information and for cooperation with OLAF in the area of criminal law. In order to facilitate communication with OLAF, the AFCOS network was established (Anti-Fraud Coordinating Structure), being a structure of contact points in the competent departments, regional councils of the Cohesion Region, city council of the Prague capital, Police Presidium, National Security Bureau and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
A major portion of communication between the domestic authorities and OLAF is realized on two basic levels related to periodic reports of so called legal discrepancies and so called administrative discrepancies. The former area is autonomously secured by the Prosecutor General’s Office as the exclusive contact point of the AFCOS network for criminal-law discrepancies, whereas the latter is secured by the Ministry of Finance of the Czech republic as the central contact point for collection of information from individual contact points (with the exception of the Prosecutor General’s which exercises its competence in the area of criminal law autonomously – for details see below).
In the period between 2001 and 2007 the Prosecutor General’s Office acted as the central contact point of the AFCOS network for communication with OLAF. After reviewing several years of exercising this function by the Prosecutor General’s Office a decision was formed to transfer the function of the central contact point of the AFCOS network directly to an authority participating on administration and control of European Funds, which is the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic. This step was realized on the basis of the Government Resolution no. 1010 dated 5. September 2007, was and still is substantiated in particular by the fact that a major portion of information and the area of cooperation with OLAF represent fields that do not pertain to the competence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but directly relate to the administrative area associated with audits, control and evaluation of disposing with monetary funds within the frame of individual endowment projects. As was stated above, the agenda of operation of the central contact point of the AFCOS network is realized, in addition to organizational provision of mutual cooperation, especially in the area of administrative control of disposing with EU funds, i.e. in an area outside the competence of the Public Prosecution system.
Given the specific conditions for providing information acquired in criminal proceedings and following the basic distinction of the reported discrepancies into the criminal and administrative area, the Prosecutor General’s Office further acts within the AFCOS network as an exclusive contact point for OLAF in the area of criminal law and for reports of criminal-law discrepancies in the form of periodic annual reports. In the course of performance of this agenda the Prosecutor General’s Office operates within its standard competence of the Public Prosecutor’s Office as an authority involved in criminal proceedings and secures facilitation of exchange of information between the Czech authorities involved in criminal proceedings and OLAF investigative authorities. As was mentioned above, this European authority also receives periodic quarterly reports of so called discrepancies in the area of criminal law in the course of disposing with EU funds related to pending criminal cases, in which the financial or economic interests of the EU were or could potentially be harmed. This information is acquired in particular through the existing information obligation of the lower Public Prosecutor’s Offices to the Prosecutor General’s Office and through the cooperation with the Police Presidium, which is another contact point of the AFCOS network.
Formally, the cooperation of the Prosecutor General’s Office with OLAF in the matter of reporting criminal-law discrepancies and other communication or exchange of information is secured by the Department of Serious Economic and Financial Crime (the SEFC Department). The SEFC Department mandatorily monitors all criminal proceedings conducted by Czech authorities involved in criminal proceedings on all levels, which can have impact on the revenues and expenses of EU budgets, which incurred damage of at least 10.000 EUR. This concerns in particular criminal conduct in the area of provision of subsidies out of EU resources, criminal activity consisting in tax evasion and evasion of customs duties as one of the forms of income of EU budgets, and also crime represented by forgery and distribution of forged Euro currency.