Business criminal law

Our experience includes proceedings for:

• managerial crimes;
• falsification of documents, including VAT invoices;
• money laundering;
• financial and insurance fraud;
• acts violating the interests of creditors;
• protection of intellectual and industrial property, including patents and trademarks
• manipulation of financial instruments;
• defrauding public funds (subsidies);
• corruption in the public and private sectors;
• interference with public tenders;
• acts of unfair competition;
• crimes against the rights of persons performing gainful employment;
• environmental crimes;
• liability of collective entities.

Business criminal law includes a number of acts that target business turnover, financial order, and business order. They can affect individual as well as collective interests (e.g., regularity of business turnover). Such crimes are committed primarily by entrepreneurs, and are also distinguished by the fact that their purpose is the desire to obtain benefits.

Business crimes are regulated in the Criminal Code, the Tax Criminal Code, as well as in other laws (special laws) concerning particular aspects of business turnover. In addition to liability for business crimes, there is also liability of somewhat lesser severity, but it is still a repressive liability, i.e. liability for business crimes.

Handling this type of case requires not only knowledge of criminal law, but also the specifics of business turnover, concepts of finance, and economics. As we specialise in supporting business entities, we are well prepared to handle these types of cases.

Criminal tax law

We represent clients in cases conducted by tax offices, customs and revenue offices, and prosecutors’ offices relating to misdemeanours and criminal offences, in particular:

• filing false tax returns;
• tax fraud;
• concealing the true extent of a business;
• excise crimes and offences;
• fraud related to VAT, excise duty, and fuel duty;
• fraud related to tax refunds, budgetary grants, subsidies or expenditures incurred;
• customs offences and crimes;
• foreign exchange offences and crimes;
• offences and crimes relating to the organisation of gambling;
• tax evasion;
• irregularities in the keeping of accounting records;

Criminal tax law is a separate part of the Polish criminal law system, which is governed by its own liability rules, set out in the Fiscal Criminal Code. Criminal tax law comprises customs, foreign exchange, tax and gambling offences and crimes. They are aimed at the order and financial interests of the State Treasury, local government units, and the European Union. Liability for tax offences or crimes may apply to persons acting individually, as well as to persons undertaking certain actions within a corporate structure, and entrepreneurs.

A combination of liability for crimes, offences and tax crimes and offences is possible.

International criminal law

We are experienced in handling international criminal cases.

We help our clients:

• in referring complaints to the European Court of Human Rights;
• in the course of extradition proceedings;
• in European Arrest Warrant procedures;
• in the procedure for obtaining a letter of appointment;
• in proceedings relating to the adoption and transfer of criminal judgements
• obtain evidence from abroad by means of an European Investigation Order.

International criminal law encompasses, inter alia, provisions of national criminal law that concern the application of criminal law, provisions of national law, international agreements (bilateral, multilateral), norms of international law concerning the criminalisation of particular behaviour, and cooperation in the prosecution of crimes.

Criminal cases

We are experienced in representing clients (defendants, victims) before law enforcement agencies (prosecution, police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (Centralne Biuro Śledcze Policji (CBŚP), the Central Anticorruption Bureau (Centralne Biuro Antykorupcyjne) (CBA), the Internal Security Agency (Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (ABW) and courts of all instances in cases involving crimes:

• against the state and collective goods, which constitute a very broad category of offences in the Criminal Code and include offences such as, inter alia, offences against public safety (e.g. causing a commonly dangerous event, manufacturing or trading in dangerous substances), traffic offences (e.g. causing a traffic accident, driving while intoxicated), environmental crimes (e.g. pollution, destruction of the environment), crimes against the activities of state institutions and local self-government (e.g. violation of integrity, assault, insulting a public official, influencing the official actions of an authority, bribery, paid protection, abuse of power by a public official), offences against the administration of justice (e.g. false testimony, false accusation, false reporting of a crime), crimes against elections and referendum (e.g. disruption of elections, electoral bribery, violation of the secrecy of elections), crimes against public order (e.g. participation in a rally, promotion of fascism or another totalitarian regime), crimes against protection of information (e.g. disclosure, use of classified information, unlawful obtaining of information), crimes against reliability of documents (e.g. all types of forgery).
• against the individual good, which are related to the protection of legal assets such as life, health, freedom, honour, inviolability, inter alia:
  • – crimes against life and health (e.g. unlawful abortion, manslaughter, causing bodily harm, fighting, beatings, endangerment);
  • – crimes against liberty (e.g. human trafficking, criminal threats, stalking, coercion, recording an image of a naked person without their consent, performing a medical procedure without the patient’s consent);
  • – crimes against freedom of conscience and religion (e.g. insulting religious feelings, religious discrimination)
  • – crimes against sexual freedom and decency (e.g. rape, sexual exploitation, forced prostitution, profiting from prostitution);
  • – crimes against the family and guardianship (e.g. abuse, not paying alimony);
  • – crimes against honour and bodily integrity (e.g. defamation, insult, violation of bodily integrity);
• crimes against property (e.g. theft and all its types, robbery, misappropriation, fraud, computer fraud, stolen property, destruction of property).

The category of criminal cases includes, in principle, all cases not covered by business criminal law and criminal tax law. Based on the object of protection (legal good, value that is protected by the criminal law norm), we can distinguish between crimes against the state and collective goods, crimes against individual goods and crimes against property.

We are experienced in handling criminal cases characterised by various levels of severity, committed as part of organised criminal structures, of a multi-person or multi-faceted nature. We act both in the procedural role of a defence counsel for the suspect, the accused, as well as a representative of an injured party or an auxiliary prosecutor. We can provide appropriate legal assistance to the victims of specific crimes.