Yes, that has happened: confiscation orders leaving not enough to pay the lawyer trying to contest the confiscation order.

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Mr Connor said it was "a complicated case with a complicated financial background", and so the confiscation order would not be completed within the six-month time-frame required by legislation.

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"The most delicate phases of the VFG affair" were conducted in lawyers' and bankers' offices in Milan and Rome or in the private homes in Italy of brothers Vittorio and Matteo Marzotto, according to a November asset-confiscation order reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

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