What is Capital Market Criminal Law
The functioning of and the trust in the financial system are ascertained by the close monitoring and strict regulation of the banking and capital market industry. At the same time, violations of the national and EU-level regulations are sanctioned with heavy fines or may even lead to a criminal liability. The regulations are enforced by the State Prosecutors and the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin), whose qualification concerning the subject-matter is, oftentimes, better.First and foremost, conducting banking business or providing financial services without authorisation constitutes an indictable offence, as do certain compliance violations by banks. Similarly, money laundering and financing terrorism are illegal. Everyday offences like tax evasion (or a participation therein) or embezzlement (i.e. in bank lending) may threaten financial institutions.
Market manipulation and insider trading, which are regulated in the German Securities Trading Act (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz – WpHG) are the most important criminal offences of capital market criminal law; further notable is the criminal liability for those acts, which allegedly exercise an illegal influence on the market, as well as the violation of obligations imposed by legal regulations governing capital markets (i.e. ad hoc-, transparency- and publicity requirements).
The team of Tsambikakis & Partner is available to preventively assist financial institutions, providers of financial services, trading banks and market participants with staying oriented in this tightly-knit jungle of regulations and will represent and defend you and your company in legal proceedings concerning criminal, administrative and legal supervisory offences in a banking and capital markets context.
Who hires us
- Financial and credit institutions
- Providers of financial services
- Trading banks and market participants
- Directors, Boards
- Supervisory Boards