Penal commercial law

In recent years, the climate in the economy has become increasingly harsh. What was seen as a "peccadillo" a few years ago, is now pursued by law. This was most impressively demonstrated in the case of bribes. Formerly it was possible to make bribes tax deductible. This is no longer the case. Under current law, as was shown by the example of a large Munich-based electronics company, bribes have led to fines totalling billions.

And prison sentences are now no longer the absolute exception in cases of tax evasion. Besides tougher penalties, the bar was also raised for voluntary declarations to avoid penalties.
If a manager violated the "business judgment rule," this was a case for civil liability in the past. But for several years, investigations for embezzlement have regularly been added.

In addition to this, companies are also being held accountable more often. Companies can be subject to fines as per § 30 Code of Administrative Offences (OWiG) that can reach amounts of up to ten million euros per misdemeanour. Appointing us in good time will ideally prevent these problems occurring. 

Our activities in the field of economic and fiscal penal law

As a law firm with a strong focus on various fields of business law, we also specialise in penal law in the same fields.

We therefore exclusively provide consultancy and/or defence in the field of commercial and fiscal penal law:

• Corruption offences
• Breaches of trust
• Money laundering
• Balance sheet offences
• Fraud and collusive tendering
• Antitrust and competition offences
• Social security offences/penal insolvency law
• Offences under fiscal law (including customs offences)

Commercial penal law - our services

By pooling our penal law, commercial law and fiscal law expertise, we can offer a comprehensive consulting approach in the field of commercial and fiscal penal law.
 

• Defence in commercial criminal matters
• Defence in penal fiscal cases*
• Defending senior executives (§ 130 OWiG) and companies (§ 30 OWiG)
• Support/coordination in case of arrival of investigating authorities for house searches
• Penal preventive counselling**
• Criminal compliance
• Money laundering prevention
• Creating policies (gift policy, anti-corruption policy, code of conduct)
• Forensic investigations in the company (internal investigations) and fraud prevention**

* In collaboration with your tax consultant and/or tax experts
from BDO AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft
**In collaboration with staff from the Forensic Science, Risk & Compliance divisions of BDO AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft