Criminal Lawyers in Falsification of Accounts

The offence of falsification of annual accounts and other corporate documents, regulated in Art. 290 of the Spanish Criminal Code, protects the truthfulness of corporate information and the trust of legal-economic traffic in the financial statements filed with the Commercial Registry. Consolidated Supreme Court case-law has precisified the contours of the type: not every accounting inaccuracy is a crime, only those that alter the true and fair view of the assets, financial situation or results with intent and capacity to cause economic harm. As criminal lawyers specialising in account falsification, we intervene from the first procedural step to articulate the dual technical-accounting and procedural defence.

Typical Forms (Art. 290 CP)

The typical modalities are recurring in forensic practice. The concealment of liabilities (not provisioning supplier debts, not reflecting contingent liabilities from litigation, omitting guarantees granted to group companies) to artificially improve solvency. The overvaluation of assets (real estate, obsolete inventory, uncollectible receivables without impairment, intangibles without recoverability) to inflate net assets. The improper capitalisation of expenses that should be taken to the income statement, such as non-recoverable R&D expenses or current financial expenses. The non-recording of real income or, conversely, the premature recognition of unaccrued income. And, in serious cases, the B accounting in concurrence with the tax offence under Art. 305 CP.

Penalties and Concurrence

The penalties under Art. 290 CP comprise prison from 1 to 3 years and fine from 6 to 12 months. When economic harm has actually been caused to the company, the shareholders or third parties (creditors, investors, Administration), the penalty is applied in its upper half. If the falsification is instrumentally used to commit other economic offences (fraud, tax evasion, asset stripping, unfair administration), real or instrumental concurrence is appreciated, multiplying the criminal reach. The legal entity is not criminally liable under Art. 290, which is not among the offences covered by Art. 31 bis CP; it can only be so where the facts also amount to an offence that does provide for it (fraud, tax fraud, money laundering). To custodial penalties are added the fine, special disqualification as an accessory penalty where the office was directly connected with the offence (Art. 56 CP), the bar on acting as a director that company law attaches to the conviction (Art. 213 LSC), reparative civil liability and, where applicable, the nullity of the approved accounts with commercial registry implications.

Technical Defence Strategy

The technical defence articulates several complementary lines. First, the technical-accounting discussion: not every discrepancy with the General Accounting Plan or IFRS integrates criminal falsehood; the reasoned choice between alternative methods covered by the rule (valuation criteria, useful lives, impairments, risk provisions) is accounting opinion, not fraudulent falsehood. Second, the absence of capacity to cause relevant economic harm: the principle of minimum intervention excludes from Criminal Law the minor inaccuracies that do not alter the overall true and fair view. Third, the effective delegation to the financial team and auditors: the signing administrator can benefit from the principle of trust and of mistake as to the falsity (mistake of fact, Art. 14.1 CP) when they have acted after a favourable external auditor's report. Fourth, the separation between de facto and de jure administrator to neutralise crossed charges. Fifth, the challenge of the evidentiary chain and the party expert appraisal recharacterising the discrepancies.

Current Forensic Practice

In current forensic practice we observe sustained growth in accounting-falsification proceedings, especially linked to shareholder conflicts, punishable insolvencies under Arts. 257-261 CP, culpable bankruptcy, banking financing operations backed by over-optimistic accounts, and company-sale transactions where the buyer discovers material deviations in due diligence. Act 11/2021 on anti-fraud measures, EU Directive 2017/1371 on the protection of financial interests and recent Supreme Court case-law have reinforced the institutional response. Organic Law 1/2025 on the efficiency of the Public Justice Service is a procedural and organisational statute: it does not amend the Criminal Code or its penalties. At Alonso Sala, we tackle each file with a multidisciplinary criminal-commercial-accounting team: we conduct reverse audit, articulate party economic expertise neutralising or modulating the charge, manage coordination with the client's external auditors and build a comprehensive defence protecting the charged administrator and, where applicable, the company itself as a legal entity.