VIP and High-Reputation Criminal Defense

Criminal defense of high-exposure clients —executives, HNW individuals, professional athletes, artists, political or media figures— requires a radically different professional model from the standard. Knowing the Criminal Code is not enough: the crisis must be managed in its totality, from information confidentiality to public communication, including coordination with other professionals (tax specialists, press offices, family office). This page describes the working model; each component also has its own dedicated analysis.

The VIP Client Profile

What defines the high-exposure client is not their wealth, but the combination of three factors that condition the defense. The first is heightened public exposure: greater media and judicial scrutiny that turns reputational risk into a primary variable, at times more feared than the sentence itself. The second is multijurisdictional complexity: assets, companies and residences in several countries frequently concur, with implications of international cooperation. The third is access to resources for an advanced technical defense —international expert reports, cooperation with firms in different jurisdictions— which allows an ambitious strategy to be deployed but demands rigorous coordination. Understanding this profile is the basis of the rest of the model.

Reinforced Confidentiality

VIP clients require confidentiality protocols far superior to the standard: communications through encrypted channels, segregated document storage, internal firm restriction to the core team, NDAs with all third parties involved (experts, translators, foreign firms). Press leakage of information about an imputation may be, in damage terms, worse than the conviction itself. The core team is restricted and named, and the traceability of access to sensitive information is controlled at all times.

Integrated Multidisciplinary Defense

The VIP client's criminal problem is rarely strictly criminal: it usually involves tax matters (regularization, expat tax planning, double taxation), civil matters (patrimonial liability, parallel divorce), labor matters (senior management, severance), commercial matters (corporate structure, governance) and communications. The lead criminal lawyer coordinates the team and maintains strategic coherence, so that no decision on one front (for example, a tax regularization) compromises another (the criminal position). A single point of direction avoids the contradictory messages that so harm these profiles.

Coordination with External Teams

The high-exposure client arrives with their own ecosystem of advisors: family office, usual communications agency, commercial firms, tax advisors. The criminal defense does not replace them, it integrates them. We set clear protocols on who decides what, shield professional secrecy against the circulation of information and synchronize timing so that the procedural action and the public communication do not contradict each other. When the case has an international dimension, we activate a network of correspondent criminal firms in the main jurisdictions for integrated coordination rather than scattered actions. The lines of coordination with the communications agency and of media accompaniment are developed on their own pages.

Presumption of innocence and trial by media: lawful reputation management during proceedings

Defending a person in the public eye is not fought only in the courtroom but also against published opinion. The presumption of innocence (Art. 24.2 of the Spanish Constitution) protects any person under investigation until a final conviction, yet its social force erodes when a case is aired in the media before the court has ruled. This phenomenon, known as trial by media, is not in itself an offence: it reflects the tension between freedom of information (Art. 20 CE) and the rights to honour, privacy and one's own image (Art. 18 CE). The aim is to shield the proceedings without letting the media defence become the centre of gravity of the matter.

Lawful reputation management rests on one premise: the case is won in court, not in the headlines. We therefore prioritise control of the narrative inside the process (pleadings, evidence, procedural incidents) and reserve external communication for measured, truthful and non-injurious responses. We avoid any practice that could be read as pressure on witnesses, experts or the court itself. When a publication harms a client's honour or spreads information covered by court secrecy, the answer is not to fuel the controversy but to activate the legal channels: exercise of the rights under Organic Law 1/1982, the right of reply and, where appropriate, the reporting of leaks that compromise the confidential material of the case.

Secrecy of the investigation, leaks and the protection of the suspect's data (Art. 301 LECrim)

The secrecy of the proceedings is the central procedural tool for protecting someone facing investigation under public scrutiny. As a general rule, investigative records are confidential until the oral trial begins (Art. 301 of the Criminal Procedure Act), and the judge may also declare internal secrecy vis-à-vis the parties for a set period when the effectiveness of the investigation so requires (Art. 302 LECrim). The defence ensures that this confidentiality is respected and that sensitive information does not circulate outside the file, where it would fall beyond all procedural safeguards.

Leaks of confidential material are not harmless: they can cause irreversible damage to a suspect's image and, depending on the case, generate liability for those who disclose information protected by secrecy. The strategy includes seeking to identify the source of a leak, requesting the closure of improper access to the file and asking for anonymisation measures where protected personal data is at stake. Against the unlawful dissemination of documents or images obtained from the proceedings, we assess the avenues offered by Organic Law 1/1982 and by data-protection rules, always coordinated with the criminal defence line so as not to weaken the client's procedural position.

Privileged jurisdiction (aforamiento): when the Supreme Court or the High Court hears the case, and its effects

Determining the competent court is decisive when the person under investigation holds an office with privileged jurisdiction. The Constitution reserves to the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court the investigation and trial of proceedings against deputies and senators (Art. 71.3 CE). Other public office-holders, under the regional statutes and the applicable legislation, fall within the jurisdiction of the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of their region. Aforamiento is not a personal privilege but a jurisdictional safeguard: it fixes a court predetermined by law for those who perform certain public functions.

Privileged jurisdiction produces practical effects that the defence must anticipate. The investigation is conducted by a judge of the very court that holds jurisdiction, under an admission and appeal regime different from the ordinary procedure. Loss of the status that triggered the privilege usually ends the competence of the higher court and leads to the transfer of the case to the court that corresponds according to the procedural stage. It is therefore essential to examine from the outset whether the privilege applies, to what extent it covers the facts under investigation, and how it affects the confidentiality of the proceedings, given the heightened media attention these cases attract.

Extradition and the European arrest warrant: principles and grounds for refusal

For clients with an international profile, the possibility of a request from abroad calls for specialised defence. Within Europe, the European arrest and surrender warrant applies, transposed by Law 23/2014, based on mutual recognition and operating to short deadlines; outside the Union, the regime of Law 4/1985 on Passive Extradition applies, structured in a judicial phase and a governmental phase. The defence intervenes in both to verify that the request meets the legal requirements and that the fundamental rights of the requested person are respected.

There are well-established grounds for opposing surrender. Extradition requires dual criminality: the conduct must be an offence both in the requesting State and in Spain. The principle of speciality prevents the surrendered person from being tried for facts other than those that grounded the request. Law 4/1985 provides for non-surrender of nationals and of those who must be tried by Spanish courts, as well as refusal for political offences, for limitation or extinction of criminal liability, or where there is a risk of inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment or of trial by an exceptional court. The European warrant adds its own mandatory and optional grounds for refusal. Each ground is assessed on a case-by-case basis, without prejudging the outcome.