The advent of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (“EPPO”) has been broadly welcomed throughout the European legal community, including by legal entities operating in the single market and their advisors. Even so, considerable uncertainties remain for these economic actors on how the new enforcement regime will affect them. These uncertainties stem from the fact that the twenty-two jurisdictions in which the EPPO will operate have in some cases radically different approaches to issues such as the nature of and conditions for corporate criminal liability as well as the substantive and procedural framework governing corporate criminal investigations. The fluidity with which the EPPO will conduct investigations across the EU, combined with potential unpredictability of the locus of an ultimate resolution or trial, will mean that these substantive and procedural divergences are likely to raise considerable difficulties, particularly for legal entities. The EPPO should therefore quickly establish guidelines on how to approach … Read more

The independence of the judiciary has been a recurrent issue in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in recent years. In particular, in 2019 and 2020, in a series of new cases concerning the status of national public prosecutors, the Court examined the level of independence necessary for public prosecutors to fall within the concept of an “issuing judicial authority” within the meaning of Article 6(1) of the Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant. After an exposition of these cases, this article seeks to investigate the impact of this case law on the EU criminal justice system. Crucially, it is argued that the new case law is likely to change the EAW dynamics that the Member States, especially those that have conferred upon their public prosecutors’ offices the power to issue EAWs, have been relying on so far and, as a consequence, the … Read more

With the increase in volume and importance of cross-border investigations in the EU, ensuring the admissibility of evidence gathered in another Member State at trial is crucial − both for efficient law enforcement and for the protection of fundamental rights. At present, the rules on the collection, use, and admissibility of evidence are left to the laws of national criminal procedure of the Member States. These differ extensively as to the collection, use, admissibility, and nullity of evidence and thereby act as an obstacle to the use of cross-border evidence. In order to overcome the present difficulties, this article argues in favour of a new legislative proposal based on Art. 82(2) subsection 2 TFEU laying down common rules for the admissibility and exclusion of evidence in criminal proceedings. The article starts with a short description of the problem and a summary of the current legal framework before turning to the … Read more

The banking system is often at the epicentre of large-scale financial crimes. Recent scandals involving major European credit institutions questioned the role of banking regulators in supporting law enforcement agencies and revealed the weakness of the current interaction between the European Central Bank (ECB) and national actors. Despite its ostensible coherence, the Single Supervisory Mechanism legal framework can prove problematic in terms of efficiency and adequacy in facing global financial crime. This article explores the specific case of information exchange between banking supervisors and criminal investigative authorities at national level. After a descriptive overview of the ECB reporting duties of potential criminal offences, we examine the possibility of a more coherent information exchange system, where a direct channel of communication between the ECB and criminal law enforcement agencies could serve as a better integrated strategy.

The current EU approach to jurisdictional conflicts is discussed in the first part of this article. The article highlights the persistent problems of the existing legal framework as well as those emanating from Eurojust’s approach to the matter. After linking the topic with the ne bis in idem principle, the Member States’ interests in prosecuting criminal offenses under their competence, and the EU’s objective in the AFSJ when fighting impunity, the author presents some pivotal reflections on a better solution in the second part. Any solution first and foremost has to respect the EU’s main characteristic as a supranational organisation aligned to its constitutional treaties and to its Charter of Fundamental Rights. Within this framework, the article:
- Opts for models that not only solve but also prevent conflicts of jurisdiction
- Highlights the possibility of distinguishing between more flexible and less flexible models;
- Illustrates a model based on the territoriality principle … Read more

The principle of ne bis in idem as an individual right is textually guaranteed in Art. 50 CFR / Art. 54 CISA, on the one hand, and in Art. 4 Prot. No. 7 ECHR, on the other. The CJEU and the ECtHR have delineated many issues in their detailed case law and have reciprocally influenced each other’s jurisprudence. The article identifies three major problems: Firstly, the definition of “criminal proceeding” as a prerequisite for application of the principle relies on the Engel criteria identified by the ECtHR, but it is difficult to incorporate new forms of sanctions, such as “naming and shaming,” into this definition, and the fact that administrative sanctions do not fall within the ambit of ne bis in idem is not justifiably accounted for. Secondly, the courts may have determined which procedural acts meet the requirement of res judicata (terminating a criminal proceeding) and which ones do … Read more