🇮🇹 Italy → 🇺🇸 United States

The United States requested the extradition of a Russian-German national from Italy for offences connected with the operation of a cryptocurrency exchange platform and money laundering. Germany subsequently issued a European Arrest Warrant concerning conduct allegedly overlapping with the facts underlying the extradition request. The Supreme Court quashed the decision authorising extradition because the Court of Appeal had relied on a decision issued in the separate EAW proceedings without formally introducing it into the extradition case or allowing the parties to comment on it, thereby breaching the adversarial principle. The Court further held that the requested judicial authority must activate the Petruhhin notification mechanism by informing the member state of nationality and allowing it a reasonable period to take appropriate action. In addition, where an EAW and a third-country extradition request coexist, the judicial authority must seek the prior opinion of the Minister of Justice under the EU-US Extradition Agreement before deciding which request should take precedence. The case was remitted for a new decision.

In matters of extradition of a national of a Member State of the European Union to a third State, the requested Member State, in application of the notification mechanism outlined in the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber, 6 September 2016, C-182/15), is required to inform the State of nationality also where that State’s domestic law alone provides nationality as a ground for refusing surrender. This is in order to enable that State to issue, in turn, a European Arrest Warrant and request surrender for the purpose of prosecuting the same acts.