Corruption offences

ECKSTEIN & KOLLEGEN lawyers advise, defend and represent individuals and companies in the area of corruption offences.

Corruption offences include, for example, the official offences of accepting benefits, corruption, granting benefits and bribery as well as foreign bribery; the offences of corruption and bribery in business transactions; the offences of corruption and bribery in the health care sector; and the offences of bribery of voters and corruption and bribery of elected officials. In the field of sports, corruption offences may include sports betting fraud and manipulation of professional sports competitions. Asset forfeiture can also become relevant for corruption offences.

Since the late 1990s, law enforcement agencies have increasingly focused on the prosecution of corruption offences. The same applies to media coverage, which in some cases has focused intensively on allegations of corruption that have come to light.
With corruption offences, the distinction between socially acceptable, permissible conduct and corruptive, punishable conduct can pose considerable difficulties.

In the areas of activity relevant to criminal corruption law, it is therefore essential to establish systems that ensure comprehensive corruption prevention. ECKSTEIN & KOLLEGEN lawyers advise on the establishment of such systems – for example in the form of anti-corruption guidelines or corresponding compliance structures.

If an allegation of corruption is made, not only the person acting but also the company may be exposed to the risk of a severe sanction being imposed, for example in the form of fines or the confiscation of correspondingly obtained profits. In addition, more and more German states are keeping corruption registers in which corresponding corporate misconduct is entered. Such entries regularly result in the exclusion of a company from public contracts and can therefore massively impair its economic basis. It should also be borne in mind that media coverage can lead to considerable damage to a company’s reputation. The lawyers of ECKSTEIN & KOLLEGEN can provide a defence in the case of suspected corruption that takes all these aspects into account.