Criminal law
Our attorneys also have extensive experience in the field of criminal law. We assist injured parties in the different phases of criminal proceedings.
In addition, we have special expertise in financial, environmental and occupational health offences. Our cases often also involve corporate fines.
Environmental offences
Our experienced attorneys handle cases involving environmental offences, both for the injured parties and the defendants.
Chapter 48 of the Criminal Code deals with environmental offences. Offences covered by this chapter include degradation of the environment, aggravated degradation of the environment, environmental violation, negligent degradation of the environment, nature conservation offence, aggravated nature conservation offence and building protection offence. Matters pertaining to environmental offences often also require the interpretation of other legislation, decrees and, for example, the terms and conditions of the environmental permit issued for the operation and the applicable regulations.
Questions about the allocation of liability are a special area of interest in environmental offences. As a general rule, the person whose obligations the act or omission in question violates shall be considered as being guilty of the environmental offence. In determining this, consideration shall be given to the position of the person in question, to the nature and extent of his or her duties and powers and to his or her participation in the starting and continuation of the unlawful situation in other respects. The law or legal practice often don’t provide a direct answer as to how liability should be allocated in each individual case.
Issues regarding time-barring of the offence are also emphasised in the case of environmental offences. The time between the action or the alleged action and it becoming the subject of proceedings may sometimes be very long. Chapter 8, section 1, paragraph 4 of the Criminal Code contains specific exceptions concerning the limitation period applicable to environmental offences specifically.
In addition to questions related to criminal law, environmental offence cases also often involve claims for damages or responding to such claims. Our attorneys have extensive experience in matters pertaining to liability for damages.
In the case of environmental offences, liability for damages of a legal person, or a corporate fine, is also often considered.
Since environmental offence proceedings often involve issues specific to these type of cases, the injured party or the defendant should use an attorney who has experience in environmental offence cases in particular.
Attorney Jyri Nikander already dealt with environmental offences in the role of prosecutor before his career as an attorney. He has also handled cases related to environmental offences as an attorney, which gives him extensive experience in this field of law, both from the perspective of the injured party and in the defendant.
Financial offences
Financial offences include numerous types of cases. Typical financial offences include business offences, such as accounting offences or its aggravated form, violation of a business secret, misuse of a business secret, or offences related to the giving or acceptance of a bribe. Other forms of financial offences include several types of offences against public finances, such as tax fraud and its aggravated or petty forms, tax violation and different kinds of frauds involving a public party. Other examples of typical financial offences include offences by a debtor, such as dishonesty by a debtor or its aggravated form and fraud by a debtor.
Financial offences are typically very complex, and it is not unusual that the criminal investigation consists of several thousands of pages. It may, therefore, be difficult for a layman to interpret what the case is all about or which factors are relevant for the matter. On the other hand, the suspect’s right that also any evidence against the suspected offence is presented already during the criminal investigation and that such evidence is taken into consideration when charges are brought or when imputability is considered. Using an attorney already in the early phase of the criminal proceedings is, therefore, advisable. Having an attorney assisting the civil party during the criminal investigation ensures that their interests are protected as appropriate. It is important for a civil party to have the amount and grounds for their civil law claim to be determined as appropriate and that the related presentation of evidence is established.
Financial offence cases also often involve claims for damages and, from the civil party’s perspective, the question of how to collect any damages from the defendants. In order to receive compensation, the police may seek a precautionary measure for the assets of the persons suspected of the offence from the court in accordance with the Criminal Investigation Act, even based on the suggestion of the injured party. In the case of financial offences, liability for damages of a legal person, or a corporate fine, is also often considered.
Attorney Ismo Sillanpää has a decade of experience of acting as a bankruptcy estate administrator. In this position, he has represented or assisted the injured party in numerous financial offence cases. He also has experience of assisting persons suspected of an offence and defendants. Attorney Jyri Nikander has years of experience as a prosecutor and as an advocate. In his position as a prosecutor, Nikander dealt with a wide variety of criminal offences. Before transferring to working as an advocate, he focused on financial and environmental offences in particular. Furthermore, Nikander has represented and assisted both injured parties and defendants as an attorney in different kinds of financial offences. In addition to his legal training, Nikander has a degree in financial administration and experience of corporate consulting, among other things.
Companies and communities sometimes end up in a situation where they notice that they have been the victim of a crime. We also assist companies and communities during the investigation of suspected misconduct. Our extensive network of collaboration partners includes persons with the competency to conduct special audits. If necessary, we will assist in the investigation of the matter ourselves, draw up the necessary statements for requests for investigation or reporting an offence and, if necessary, prepare the requests for investigation for the authorities responsible for criminal investigations.
Our extensive experience and education as well as our excellent collaboration network guarantee that your case is dealt with properly and competently.
Typical assignments related to financial offences include:
- assisting the injured party or the defendant during a criminal investigation and the subsequent trial;
- representing a bankruptcy estate, which is the injured party, during a criminal investigation and the subsequent trial;
- assisting the injured party in the preliminary investigation of a suspected crime and in the drawing up of the request for investigation.
Employment offences
Employment offences refer to offences related to occupational safety and health, working hours protection, work discrimination and the violation of different kinds of rights of employees as laid out in chapter 47 of the Criminal Code.
The employer or, more specifically, the employer’s representative (e.g., the managing director and members of the Board of Directors of the employer company) and employer’s substitutes referred to in the Occupational Safety and Health Act (employees working as supervisors with the responsibility to oversee their subordinates) are responsible for the occupational safety and health of its employees. This concerns responsibility in the broader sense, including the responsibility for the safety of working methods, the place where the work is performed and the equipment used as well as the proper orientation to employee duties and the responsibility for ensuring that the employee is fit for work in terms of their level of alertness, for instance.
Occupational safety and health offences usually need to be considered as a result of an occupational accident, but they may also emerge during an occupational safety and health inspection conducted by the Regional State Administrative Agency. The employer’s responsibility for the occupational safety of employees is rather severe, and matters involving occupational safety and health offences largely concern the interpretation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Government Decree on the Safe Use and Inspection of Work Equipment. As a result, trials are often very complex when it comes to occupational health and safety offences. Since it is very difficult for a layman to “grasp” these norms with an adequate level of detail, it is important from the perspective of ensuring the interest and rights of the parties in an occupational health and safety case–whether it be the injured party or the defendant–to have access to a competent attorney from an early stage so that attention is paid to the correct facts already during the criminal investigation and the consideration of charges.
Since neglecting occupational health and safety rarely only concerns a single individual or a single event, another key question concerns the allocation of liability. The cases often involve a chain of several actions or acts of negligence. Determining the impact of each individual actor on the end result of the chain of events may be difficult to determine unambiguously.
Working hours protection offences, on the other hand, concern the employer’s duty to keep records of working hours and annual holidays. Such assignments, likewise, largely concern the application of working time legislation and annual holiday legislation, and in most cases, the parties need an attorney who is familiar with this field of law.
In the case of occupational safety and health offences, the employer community may also be ordered to pay a community fine, if it can be proven that the employer’s representatives are guilty of actions that are punishable as an occupational safety and health offence. A community fine is not, however, possible if the employer’s substitute is the only party found guilty of the occupational safety and health offence.
Asianajotoimisto Sillanpää Oy’s attorneys have represented clients successfully in assignments concerning the application of chapter 47 of the Criminal Code. This is possible as a result of their extensive experience in wide-ranging and complex criminal procedures and, on the other hand, experience in civil procedures related to labour law are also useful in these kinds of assignments.
Assisting the injured party
Our attorneys have extensive, long-term experience of different kinds of advocacy assignments related to criminal law. Attorney Jyri Nikander also has several years of experience as a prosecutor.
We focus on assisting the injured party in so-called normal criminal offence cases in particular. We only assist persons suspected of an offence or defendants in matters related to fields other than financial, environmental and occupational safety law in exceptional circumstances. We have assisted private individuals, companies and communities who have become the victim of a crime.
It is important for the injured party to have a competent attorney to ensure that criminal liability is incurred and to present claims for compensation due to the crime.
The injured party, i.e., the victim of the crime may need help in reporting the offence to the police or drawing up a request for investigation. The attorney of the injured party sometimes needs to be present in the interviews with the injured party during the criminal investigation. Before the criminal investigation is closed and the matter is transferred to the prosecutor for the consideration of charges, it may be necessary to give a final statement regarding the adequacy of the pre-trial investigation materials, the assessment of the evidence, the legal issues involved or other matters of important for the case.
Ensuring that liability for the crime is incurred and claims for compensation due to the crime are also discussed during the trial. In addition to criminal law, our attorneys have extensive experience in pleading compensation cases in courts as well as in assisting in the applications for compensation from the State Treasury.
Our experienced attorneys represent you or your company or community with a human touch in the different phases of the criminal offence procedure.
Community fine
We deal competently with different matters related to criminal law. In our area of specialisation, the question of a legal person’s criminal liability often arises. In practice, this means a community fine.
According to chapter 9, section 1 of the Criminal Code, a corporate entity, foundation or other legal person, in the operations of which an offence has been committed shall, on the request of the prosecutor, be sentenced to a corporate fine if such a sanction has been provided for the offence in question in the said Code.
An offence is deemed to have been committed in the operations of a legal person, if the perpetrator has acted on behalf of or for the benefit of the legal person, and the perpetrator is a member of the management of the legal person or is in a public-service employment relationship or employment relationship to it or has acted by commission of a representative of the legal person. On the other hand, a corporate fine may be imposed if the offence has been committed in the operations of a legal person even if the perpetrator is not identified or if the perpetrator is not, for some other reason, sentenced to a punishment. As a general rule, no corporate fine will be imposed for a complainant offence that the injured party does not report for prosecution. A corporate fine may, however, also be imposed in such a case if a very important public interest requires that charges be brought
The monetary amount of a corporate fine is EUR 850–850,000. The monetary amount of any corporate fine must be determined based on the nature and extent of the legal person’s alleged omission or the involvement of the management as well as the financial standing of the legal person. A community fine is imposed in addition to any compensation for damages paid to the injured parties.
In matters involving community fines, a central question is whether the prerequisites for criminal liability are met in the alleged offence and, on the other hand, whether the prerequisites for corporate criminal liability are met. As the legal range of variation of community fines is very large, it is important to examine whether the amount of the community fine is correct. The question of whether the imposition of a community fine can be waived based on grounds set out in the Act may also arise.
If necessary, we also assist legal persons in matters pertaining to community fines alone.
Our attorneys have extensive experience and education in matters related not only to criminal law, but also with the legal and financial matters of companies and communities. The competence profile of our attorneys ensures that any cases involving a community fine will be handled professionally.