Our legal practice areas

• Criminal employment law
• Physicians and medical criminal law
• Foreign trade
• Banking and capital markets criminal law
• Professional and disciplinary law
• Fraud
• Administrative fine proceedings
• Corporate compliance
• Search and seizure
• Insolvency law
• Internal investigations
• Antitrust law – administrative fine proceedings
• Corruption offenses
• Administrative offenses
• Rights of publicity – protection of honor (Ehrenschutz) under criminal law
• Fictitious self-employment (Scheinselbständigkeit)
• Sports law
• Criminal tax law
• Road traffic law
• Subsidy fraud
• Environmental criminal law
• Corporate criminal law
• Breach of trust
• Unfair competition
• Customs criminal law

This list does not purport to be exhaustive. The range of services we offer is much broader and we would be happy to meet with you personally to discuss the scope of any potential engagement.

Counseling in advance

No one ever intentionally seeks an encounter with the criminal justice system. As a rule, our clients turn to us when they are faced with the need to defend themselves against a specific criminal charge. However, experience has shown that clients who obtain legal advice early on are more likely to be able to avoid criminal proceedings and thus the need to mount a legal defense.

Particularly in business and corporate decision-making scenarios, it can be useful to seek the advice of a criminal law expert in addition to the opinion of general legal counsel on the proper exercise of "business judgement".

For self-assured decision-makers, this is not a sign of a guilty conscience, but only further demonstrates their ability to consider issues from all sides and handle them professionally.

The documented advice of a criminal law expert generally means that the business decision made cannot be challenged in retrospect, even under criminal law.

Defense in preliminary investigations

Being the subject of a criminal investigation is hardly something that anyone ever reckons with. But the risk is greater than it appears. German investigative authorities process approximately five million preliminary investigation proceedings every year, and the trend is rising. Of those, around one million cases land in court.

Acting as defense counsel in preliminary investigations is our bread and butter. For our clients, such investigations are almost always an absolutely exceptional situation that disrupts every aspect of their daily lives and plans for the future.

We are all too familiar with these situations and realize how important it is to bring them to a swift conclusion and as painlessly as possible for our clients.

In the interest of our clients, we avoid having to go to court whenever possible and are proud of the fact that we have managed to do this even in difficult cases.

Emergency assistance with search warrants

Many investigations start with a house search and thus with no forewarning for those involved, be it privately, at the workplace or in the company. The Internet is full of good advice about what to do in this situation,

but in practice such advice is of little use when officers are suddenly standing at the door with a search warrant in their hands. The only thing that really helps in dealing with such an unforeseen situation wisely is to call a trusted lawyer immediately, which the officers are required to allow.

We are very experienced in managing both major and minor searches, and in many cases a single phone call will suffice to clarify the situation with investigators and thus prevent any unpleasant complications for the parties involved.

Ideally, we would be on the scene immediately to steer the process with the investigators in such a way that the parties involved do not have to bother themselves or others with the matter. In many cases, the groundwork for the outcome of the proceedings is laid at this early stage.

Pretrial detention

Pretrial detention is one of the most serious infringements of a person's constitutional rights known in German law. It is hard to imagine how serious a situation this is for the detainee, their family, their employer, coworkers and their lives as a whole.

One of the most important tasks of the criminal defense lawyer is to keep the stress and strain to a minimum and alleviate it as soon as possible. If the arrest warrant is not lifted quickly, this also includes seeking to obtain early release from custody, be it through pretrial bail, supervision requirements, or by taking other steps.

The health of the detainee is also a factor that must be taken into consideration. We are all too familiar with the concerns and hardships faced by pretrial detainees and their families and the myriad of problems great and small that come with incarceration.

We advise and attend closely to our clients and their families in detention cases, always with the aim of ensuring the detainee's release as soon as possible.

Indictment and trial

In the past, public trials served to protect defendants from being tried in secret; today, the defendants must face public exposure. This is true not only for celebrities, who are literally made a spectacle of and humiliated in the media, but also to a certain extent for everyone, since, with the exception of juvenile cases, criminal trials are generally open to the public.

Therefore, the primary objective of the defense is to avoid going to trial. This is not always possible, and unfortunately in some instances it is unavoidable. In those cases, the trial must be seen as an opportunity, and an acquittal can also be truly redemptive and rehabilitate the defendant.

We bring our experience and qualifications to bear in mounting a professional and successful defense. We discuss and extensively prepare our defense strategy with the client,

taking as much time as necessary to explain the facets of the upcoming trial. Such extensive pretrial preparation not only eases defendants' uncertainty but also goes a long way to help ensure that important and exculpatory information is brought before the court. The results speak for themselves.

Appeals

Sometimes defendants do not prevail in the first instance and the judgments must be appealed. In such cases, German criminal procedure provides for two very distinct remedies. Judgments of the local courts (Amtsgerichte) may either be appealed on points of fact and law (Berufung) or appealed on points of law (Revision) as the final instance.

Under German law, an appeal on points of fact and law is essentially a trial de novo, while an appeal on points of law involves a judicial review of errors in the lower court's application of the law and procedural errors, which takes place in a predominantly written procedure and ideally leads to the case being remanded back to the lower court and retried.

When it comes to a defense strategy, these two forms of appeal require two completely different approaches that must be carried out in close coordination with the client.

We advise on and represent clients in both forms of appeal, adapting our defense strategy depending on the individual case and always with the aim of achieving the best outcome for our client.

Injured parties

Encounters with the criminal justice system often occur on the injured party's side. Individuals and companies in particular often find themselves the "victim" of crimes committed by third parties. Prosecuting the rights of injured parties who have suffered financial loss and/or personal injury requires both sensitivity and experience.

Our tasks include fact finding, filing criminal charges, inspecting files and representing clients in criminal proceedings and in actions ancillary to trial.

We understand the stress and strain that criminal proceedings entail for injured parties and seek to alleviate the tension by providing professional support.

When the injured parties are companies, we act as the primary point of contact with the investigative authorities, thus ensuring that the company meets its fact-finding and oversight obligations to the extent required by law.

Representation of witnesses

For most people, encounters with the criminal justice system occur when they are compelled to appear as witnesses in criminal proceedings. It usually comes as a complete surprise when a person is compelled to testify by subpoena from the police, the public prosecutor's office, or a subpoena to appear as a witness in court.

The reasons for seeking witness testimony can be complex and often the witnesses themselves do not understand why they are being compelled to appear. "I can't say anything of importance" or "I've already told the police everything" are common responses. Witnesses also have a right to be advised and represented by counsel when they give testimony. This is common knowledge.

Beyond this, it's also about critically assessing witness rights, such as the right to refuse to provide information about close relatives or to avoid the risk of exposing themselves to criminal prosecution by giving self-incriminating testimony.

Particularly for witnesses in criminal proceedings, we recommend that they consult an experienced criminal lawyer early on in order to avoid unpleasant and unforeseen situations during the witness examination. This includes obtaining detailed information on the general rights and obligations of witnesses and individual advice on what exactly to expect during examination.

Corporate compliance

"Compliance" has become a buzzword, particularly in criminal law. This is a consequence of major international investigations conducted in recent years which have also involved major German corporations.

The term "compliance" has its origins in U.S. law and is difficult to translate into German legal parlance, just as the notion of compliance as a whole is difficult to pin down in the German legal system. After all, is it not self-evident that all legal rules must be complied with?

While the meaningfulness of compliance may remain open for debate, it is impossible to imagine the corporate world without it. It affects multinational DAX corporations and sound SMEs, associations and public sector entities alike. No company and no company executives can afford to ignore the necessity of compliance. The German Federal Court of Justice made sure of this with a decision in 2009, imposing criminal liability on an officer in the company for the "integrity of the area of responsibility he had assumed" ("Criminal liability of the compliance officer").

Today, "compliance" is part of good corporate governance. Properly implemented, it protects the company and its employees and even strengthens the organization's reputation. However, it is important to specifically define the requirements and its implementation must be tailored to the needs of the company. Over-regulation through excessive compliance requirements can in some cases be just as detrimental to corporate goals as no compliance at all.

We are regularly called upon to develop new compliance structures for SMEs or review and revise existing systems. This also includes drafting customized codes of conduct and ongoing compliance monitoring as well as internal staff training. The benefit to the company is clear.

Consulting with experts and having them design and implement a compliance system is the best way to ensure that all legal and commercial aspects are properly taken into account.

Internal investigations

Many organizations are now turning to external experts to investigate internal misconduct and having such internal investigations conducted by major international law firms. However, what at first glance would appear to be the logical and most efficient solution often proves to be both technically and legally complicated in practice.

There are a variety of competing interests that must be taken into account: the requirements of the investigative and tax authorities on the one hand and the company's duty of care toward its employees on the other. Criminal law collides with employment law, rights to refuse information under criminal law collide with duties to cooperate under employment law. Then add to the mix the fact that different legal systems (continental versus Anglo-American, Germany versus the U.S.) may come into play and quite possibly an increased media interest in the outcome of the investigation.

All of this raises a host of legal issues which are the subject of heated debate in the literature and in practice, but which in the end remain largely unresolved.

We advise companies on how to structure and implement internal investigations, as well as individuals who are questioned in the context of those investigations. And these involve some of today's most high-profile internal investigations. As criminal lawyers, it is particularly important to uphold criminal law standards in this regard.

In our view, internal investigations and fact finding must not be conducted "at any cost". Where constitutionally guaranteed rights of individuals (nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare/"no one is bound to incriminate himself") are affected, the company's interest in fact finding – just as that of the investigative authorities – must take a back seat in individual cases. Private internal investigators may not be given broader rights than the police and public prosecutors.

Voluntary self-disclosure to avoid penalties – criminal tax law

One focus of our practice is advising and defending clients in criminal tax cases. Criminal tax law has gained in importance in recent years. This is due in part to high-profile (and in our view illegal) purchases of tax CDs by the state and its authorities. It also stems from the fact that the tax authorities as a whole are increasingly using criminal law as a cudgel to crush and eliminate complex tax cases, i.e., using the threat of criminal penalties to coerce taxpayers into agreeing actual settlements.

It is not uncommon to see stagnating tax audits give way to criminal proceedings as a means for the tax authorities to move the matter along. The case law of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has done the rest, increasing the threat of penalties by lowering the relevant loss amounts. For example, the Court ruled that a particularly serious case of tax evasion is now to be assumed where the alleged tax loss amounts to EUR 50,000 or more and a suspended sentence with probation is to be routinely denied where the tax loss amounts to EUR 1 million or more.

In recent years, we have successfully assisted our clients with numerous voluntary self-disclosures to avoid penalties. We usually coordinate our defense in the criminal tax proceedings with the client's tax advisor or another external expert. Our focus is on the criminal law implications and risks, which we assess and strategically structure in connection with the taxation process. This also includes ad hoc issues involving tax correction, contesting tax assessments and suspending the enforcement thereof, depositing advance payments and other considerations relevant under criminal law.

We understand the financial and personal pressures associated with voluntary self-disclosures and criminal tax proceedings, and do our part to help the parties involved sleep soundly again.

One more thing – road traffic law

Because of the trusting relationship we have with our clients and the fact that many of them have a penchant for high-performance vehicles, we are repeatedly called upon to deal with issues of road traffic law.

We are happy to assist our clients in this regard and continue to cultivate this small area of specialization while still addressing the finer points of white collar crime.