Criminal Lawyers in Economic Criminal Law Defence

Economic criminal law (also called white-collar crime or business criminal law) covers the set of offences committed in the scope of economic, business and financial activity. Its perimeter extends through several titles of the Spanish Criminal Code: socio-economic and patrimonial crimes (Arts. 234-318 CP), crimes against the Tax Administration and Social Security (Arts. 305-310 bis CP), corporate crimes (Arts. 290-297 CP), money laundering (Arts. 301-304 CP), punishable insolvencies (Arts. 257-261 bis CP), private and sports corruption (Art. 286 bis CP), intellectual and industrial property crimes (Arts. 270-277 CP) and corporate criminal liability (Art. 31 bis CP). Supreme Court doctrine has consolidated a demanding technical corpus on type concurrence, the principle of proportionality and penalty modulation based on the defrauded amount.

The commission modalities are numerous and highly technical. The tax crime (Art. 305 CP) requires fraud exceeding €120,000 per fiscal year and tribute; the aggravated form (Art. 305 bis CP) raises the threshold to €600,000. Unfair administration (Art. 252 CP) sanctions administrators who breach loyalty duties; with harm exceeding €50,000 it rises to 1 to 6 years' prison, and above €250,000 to 4 to 8 years (Art. 250 CP). Accounting forgery (Art. 290 CP) and the corporate crime (Art. 293 CP) protect accounting transparency. Money laundering reaches autonomous and self-laundering modalities. Punishable insolvencies include asset stripping (Art. 257), the filing of an incomplete or false list of assets in enforcement proceedings (Art. 258) and punishable insolvency (Arts. 259-261). Business corruption completes the catalogue.

The statutory penalties are severe and modulated by amount. Aggravated tax crime can reach 2 to 6 years' prison, fine of two to six times the unpaid amount and loss of tax benefits. Aggravated unfair administration, 1 to 6 years' prison, and 4 to 8 years where the harm exceeds €250,000. Accounting forgery, 1 to 3 years. Money laundering, up to 6 years (upper half if from drug trafficking, corruption or urban-planning offences, among others listed in Art. 301.1 CP). Insolvencies, up to 4 years in the basic offences and up to 6 in the aggravated ones (Arts. 257.3 and 259 bis CP). Legal entities, only for the offences for which the Code provides it (Art. 31 bis CP), may face fines calculated in daily units or in proportion to the benefit or the amount defrauded, judicial intervention, activity suspension, prohibition from contracting with the public sector and, where used instrumentally to commit offences or in cases of multiple reoffending, dissolution (Arts. 33.7 and 66 bis CP). Added to these are special disqualification for administrators, forfeiture (Arts. 127 ff.) and extended forfeiture (Art. 127 bis), which presumes the illicit origin of disproportionate assets.

The technical defence in economic criminal law rests on four fundamental axes. First, accounting expert challenge: accusations are usually based on reports from ONIF, Tax Inspection, SEPBLAC or external audits; providing solid counter-expert reports from registered experts dismantles the prosecution's narrative. Second, delimitation of legitimate business risk: case-law recognises that the "reasonable business decision" (business judgment rule) excludes unfair administration, even if the result is unfavorable. Third, challenging intent: intent requires knowledge of the elements of the offence, and a mistake about them or about the unlawfulness of the act, whether avoidable or unavoidable (Art. 14 CP), can exclude or mitigate liability. Fourth, regularisation and mitigating circumstances: tax regularization (Art. 305.4 CP) excludes liability for the tax offence, while damage reparation (Art. 21.5 CP), confession (Art. 21.4 CP) and undue procedural delay (Art. 21.6 CP), especially if treated as highly qualified, allow significant reductions in the sentence.

In current forensic practice we observe an intensification of economic criminal prosecution coordinated between Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, Economic Crime Prosecutor's Office, ONIF and AEAT, UDEF, SEPBLAC, CNMC and CNMV. Organic Law 14/2022 on embezzlement reform, Organic Law 1/2025 on Justice Service Efficiency, the transposition of the European Directives on the protection of the Union's financial interests (Directive 2017/1371) and on combating money laundering by criminal law (Directive 2018/1673), Directive 2019/1937 on whistleblowers (transposed by Act 2/2023), Directive 2024/1226 on criminal sanctions for violation of international sanctions, the EU MiCA Regulation on crypto-assets and the implementation of the European Public Prosecutor's Office have significantly expanded the prosecutorial arsenal. At Alonso Sala, with more than 15 years of experience in economic criminal law, we approach each file coordinating forensic accounting experts, external auditors, compliance experts, tax specialists and virtual asset specialists. We articulate multidimensional defences combining criminal, commercial, tax and administrative law, optimizing the client's position from the investigation phase to cassation.

The figure of the de facto or de jure administrator is central to these crimes. The prosecution often attempts to shift criminal liability to top management under aggressive theories such as "willful blindness." Our job is to delimit delegated powers and prove due diligence in management.

Our strategy is proactive: we do not wait for the trial. We provide party accounting experts from the investigation phase to neutralize the reports of court experts or the Tax Agency. Success in economic criminal law is decided on the technical solvency of the evidence provided.