The extent of the stronghold of criminal law on the business world is irrefutable.
Not only can it be said that no economic, tax, social or environmental regulations are issued that do not contain criminal provisions but public authorities effectively institute proceedings particularly on the basis of tentacular money-laundering regulations.
The criminal law team advises and assists individual entities (self-employed, employees or company executives) and legal entities, whether they are domestic or foreign clients, both in the assessment of their criminal risk (compliance) and in the defence of their interests in the context of legal proceedings.
In the latter context, elegis assists its clients whether they are accused of having committed one or more infringements or of being victims of offending conduct. elegis provides its support both during the inquiry phase (contacts with the magistrates, preparation of hearings, applications to inspect the file, requests for additional investigative measures, application for release of seizure, etc.) and during the judgement phase before the courts. elegis is also involved in plea bargaining with judicial authorities and civil transaction with victims or offenders.
elegis’ lawyers intervened in cases concerning standard offences such as corruption, fraud, forgery and the use of forged documents, misuse of company assets, market manipulation, money laundering or more specific offences such as environmental, social or tax infringements.
These services can be provided in French, in Dutch and in English.
Furthermore, against the background of the globalisation of business, our firm has developed close ties with various first-rate law firms throughout the world. We also regularly work with various accounting and finance professionals sometimes to provide evidence of embezzlement, sometimes to demonstrate a misinterpretation of accounts by the prosecution.
elegis also has widespread practical experience in common criminal law cases (theft, possession of drugs, abuse, etc.).
Lastly, since 2016, an appeal (Court of Cassation) in criminal cases has to be filed by a lawyer holding a specific certificate and this firm holds such a certificate enabling us to manage all the phases of proceedings.
By way of illustration, you will find below a list of types of cases in which elegis’ lawyers were involved:
- Complaint by a bank for IT fraud
- Defence of a foreign company accused of having falsified documents und having used such documents to deceive consumers, with the help of third parties, on the quality of the products being sold
- Defence of a company accused of having participated in a fraud in the context of a public takeover bid and in various operations
- Defence of a company belonging to an international group accused of having participated, with other companies and persons of the group, in misuse of company assets to the detriment of a subsidiary of the group and having driven the latter subsidiary to bankruptcy
- Defence of a sportsman accused of corruption for distorting the results of a sports competition
- Defence of managers of a waste processing company accused of having infringed the applicable environmental protection rules
- Defence of the manager of a company accused of having participated in a VAT carousel fraud
- Defence of a self-employed person for infringement of the applicable excise regulations
- Defence of a company accused of being liable for the death of a worker occurring on one of its operating sites
- Defence of a company accused of having infringed social regulations concerning self-employed workers
- Defence of a company director accused of having infringed the rules regarding secondment of foreign workers.