Criminal proceedings of the European Public Prosecutor's Office

Since June 2021, Hamburg has not only had the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Public Prosecutor General's Office, but also a so-called. European Delegated Public Prosecutor's Office. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) or European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) is an independent EU public prosecutor's office whose aim is to effectively prosecute crimes detrimental to the EU's financial interests, such as fraud, corruption, money laundering or cross-border VAT fraud.

Prosecuting cross-border crime in a uniform and centralized manner at EU level is not a new concern. The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), an investigative and supervisory authority that primarily detects fraud against the EU budget but does not prosecute. Eurojust, Eurojust, a European Union agency based in The Hague, has existed since 2002 and repeatedly plays a role in cross-border criminal proceedings. Its main tasks include supporting the execution of European arrest warrants, coordinating joint investigations, and the exchange of information and evidence. Eurojust acts as a mediator between national authorities, supporting operational measures such as joint action days and the formation of joint investigation teams, known as joint investigation teams. Joint Investigation Teams (JITs).

In addition to this pure investigation coordination by Eurojust and the administrative fraud monitoring by OLAF, the EPPO was established almost five years ago as supranational public prosecutor's office of the EU created the own investigative and prosecution powers The legal regulations can be found in the so-called. EPPO Regulation (EPPO Regulation). In addition, the national European Public Prosecutor's Office Act (EUStAG) in Germany regulates the implementation and cooperation of the Delegated European Prosecutors.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office also has the power, for example, Investigative measures such as house searches, searches of personal belongings and computer systems, and to obtain the surrender of objects and documents, computer data, bank account details, the seizure of instrumentalities or proceeds of crime, the monitoring of communications, and tracking and tracing. Investigations are generally conducted in accordance with the relevant national procedural rules, unless the EPPO Regulation contains specific provisions. The EPPO Regulation mentions the rights of the defence and those of the accused in various places (Recitals 80, 83, 84, 85; Art. 41 EPPO Regulation). However, due to the reference to transposition into national law (Art. 41 EPPO Regulation), procedural rights are only guaranteed to the extent that they have been reflected in national law.

Since these are cross-border issues and the national legal situation in the individual EU Member States differs, this leads – as expected – to friction. ECJ had in his first decision The ECJ's decision of December 21, 2023 (case C-281/22) addresses the question of the extent to which courts of the Member State in which an investigative measure of the EPPO was executed (executing State) may substantively review that measure if the measure was ordered by the European Delegated Prosecutor of another Member State (issuing State). According to the ECJ's ruling, judicial review in the executing State may be limited to the execution of the measure, not to the substantive justification for the measure.

In criminal proceedings conducted by the EPPO, we are always dealing with high amounts of damage and – due to the cross-border nature, but also problems with digitalization – multilingual evidence and long investigation times. most common offense prosecuted by the EPPO in Germany, VAT fraud, however, is a well-known problem among (national) specialized public prosecutors specializing in economic crime. Although further decisions from the ECJ are expected in the coming years, numerous criminal proceedings are currently underway, led by the European Delegated Prosecutors. We have defended EPPO proceedings, some of which are lengthy and always involve very high amounts of damage, both in preliminary investigations and in the main proceedings, i.e., in criminal court proceedings, and are happy to assist as part of the defense team.