Fraud

The Fiod (Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service) raids your office. You are suspected of fraud. What now?

‘Fraud' is not a criminal offence. It is a collective name for a range of punishable behaviours. It often relates to forgery, fraud, money laundering, bribery, insider trading, violations of the Bankruptcy Act, the Customs Act, the Medicines Act, the Dutch Financial Supervision Act or the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Prevention) Act.

You may be involved in a fraud case without yourself having committed any offence. An employee within your company may have made a mistake. You have sailed (too) close to the wind. Another possibility is that an investigative body may request information from you for the purpose of setting up a criminal case against someone else. Such requests are made under Section 126 of the Dutch Code of Criminal Procedure in many cases. In such situations, it is important for you to know exactly what information you must - or may not - divulge.

We provide assistance to our clients from the very beginning of an (international) investigation, whether by the judiciary, police, Fiod or by any other investigative body. Assistance from one of our specialised lawyers during the search of an office, company or home is extremely important, so that unnecessary (reputational) damage during the course of the procedure is avoided. The same is true of assistance provided to suspects and witnesses during interrogations.

When a case goes to court, we can provide assistance to the company, its employees or private individuals in all instances - before any of the courts and tribunals in the Netherlands. We also avail of the services of specialised cassation lawyers who will handle your case before the Supreme Court of the Netherlands.

It often happens that during a criminal investigation, there may also be issues related to civil law, employment law, bankruptcy law or approval of annual accounts. In such cases, we would be pleased to jointly work with your regular lawyer, or we could also introduce you to a specialist outside our firm with whom we have a close collaboration.